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The Legendarian Chronicles: Revision 11 preparations

“If the Legendaries are so superior, then why do the humans speak of them as though they are nothing but pawns…pieces of a plan that must be obtained? These so-called Legendary Pokémon are in danger, that much is certain.”

Notes:- LC is recommended for readers ages 13 and up. Although it features violence, language, questionable themes, and dark subjects, it is rather light compared to some of the more mature works on these forums.- This is a long fic. When you begin reading this, go into it with the mentality of reading a book. A long book. According to MS Word, if this were in book format, it would be around 360 pages. In document format, it’s around 230, single-spaced.- LC is and always will be under heavy revision, and my plans for future events change very often. It is not uncommon for me to make posts summarizing large changes made to previous events, or minor foreshadowing that hints at major future plot changes. Keep this in mind if you’re reading through the earlier pages of the thread—much of the discussion is very outdated. All chapter content will always be the most current Revision.

~NOTICE: This version of LC is officially outdated. A newer version that is superior in nearly every way has been posted here.~

A pair of eyes snapped open suddenly, radiating with an eerie cobalt aura and illuminating the inky blackness within the depths of the sea. The true blessing of light had never reached the utter darkness of the ocean floor, and even the rare glow of life could not betray its concealment. The creature to which the eyes belonged knew this better than any other. The deep was always dark and always would be…the deep was always calm, not like the surface…the deep could always hide those who wished to be hidden…

The ancient creature had spent much time within the cradle of its dominion. Its sleek, draconic form sliced through the water with power and speed, never hindered by the great mass of water. Thoughts raced like lightning, always coming back to the same thing, the same reason why it confined itself there. The words of the other Legendary Pokémon constantly echoed within its mind. The time…it had been spoken of nearly a millennium before…

The story was well known amongst the Order of Legends, though after eons of being passed on, retelling after retelling, it was now more myth than truth. Such thoughts had been the creature’s sole focus; the legend told of a time when Pokémon and human had lived divided, yet peaceably. Although humans were meant to rule earth, Pokémon were to live alongside them. Many Pokémon resembled the simple dumb beasts of the land, but humans respected that they were sentient, and therefore capable of understanding.

Nonetheless, conflict eventually tore the land apart. The balance between human and Pokémon went up in flames, fueled by the instability of the Order of Legends. Both were to blame, really, but the Pokémon would ultimately pay the price. Their race decimated and civilization destroyed, they would live as though animals. Eventually, the humans claimed the land as their own: the four regions of Johto, Kanto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.

The creature sighed as it streaked up from the ocean trench like a silver torpedo, the water slowly growing lighter as it rushed for the surface. Remembering the secrets of the past only brought further urgency upon the present. So many myths had been built upon that time, and so much was lost after the war that the legends of the land had nearly died. Yet there was still one more to dominate the four regions, and that was what the creature focused upon.

Pushing all thoughts from its mind, the beast rocketed out of the water and into the cool, salty air. It flapped its mighty wings once and took off into the sky, sailing effortlessly along the streaks of silver clouds that dotted the otherwise cerulean skies. It had been so long since it had last experienced the simple joys of flight. The dragon-bird scanned the ground below with intense brown eyes like that of a hawk, searching intently for the right area. With another wave of its wings, water droplets were drawn around it, forming billowy white clouds around the creature’s body to prevent it from being seen. Fluffy white crystals of snow flecked its sleek, glossy feathers as it came to perch on a fairly low mountain just on the boundary of Johto and Kanto.

At the foot of the eastern side of the mountain was Viridian City—nestled in between dense woods and high hills, its roads and homes bustling with the afternoon rush. The white dragon-bird focused on a slightly less populated area on the edge of the city past the central buildings.

The legends shall reawaken on the eve of the second millennium after the war. And from there shall dawn the new era, with the schism rekindled and the fires of war ignited, only to be smothered by a wave of revolution…

There was not much time—only six and a half years remained. The initiation had begun years ago, but now…now the search would be set into motion. The pact was inevitable, only time would tell which ones would intervene in the legendary affairs. Eight humans, eight members of the Order…was it possible? The creature gazed at the city deeply, having many vague feelings about it. For now, at least, events would have to run their course…

*****
Simultaneously in central Viridian…

I burst through the doors into the main office of the school, gasping for breath and clutching my sandy lunchbox in my arms. Why, why, why did I have to leave it on the playground? Was I late for the bus? With a quick glance at the large white clock that hung on the wall, I saw that it was 3:01, but how could that be right? My watch was ahead—that had to be it. That meant I had time to talk with my friends before going home. I spotted my friend Ajia and sprinted down the hallway toward her.

She was a year older than me, but shorter, and with medium-length dark brown hair that was nearly black and dark brown eyes as well. She was wearing a black shirt with several cartoon characters on it and shiny silver pants.

“Hi, Ajia!” I said, walking over and sitting on the bench next to her. “Have you seen Starr?” I asked enthusiastically.

“No, why?” she replied.

“I dunno, I guess I wanna say ‘bye before tomorrow…” I said, my voice trailing off as I glanced along the hallway. I figured I’d rather not risk being late. “I’d better get on the bus now. I’ll see you on Monday!” I yelled. I got up and ran out the main doors.

“Bye,” Ajia said brightly, walking through another exit that led to the street she walked along to get home.

Outside, the single bus was parked on the pavement, its engine roaring loudly as it idly sat unmoving in the parking lot. It was a private school, so not many people rode the bus. I bounded up the three stairs and into the long path with large seats on either side, making my way around legs that stuck out into the walkway and other kids shoving each other out of the seats. I found Starr near the back and sat down next to her.

“Hey, Jade,” she said, glancing up slightly when she saw me. Her short brown hair fell across her face with her leaning forward, apparently an attempt to avoid eye contact. She was also shorter than I was, but only by a little even though she was two and a half years older than me. She wore a shirt of deep violet and a rough jean skirt that barely reached her knees.

As for me, I was tall, and had long blonde hair with light blue eyes. I usually dressed like what the others called a tomboy, mainly because while most of the other girls were into dolls, I liked dinosaurs. Sometimes the other fourth graders made fun of me, though.

I sat there in silence alongside her. The full effect of what was to happen in a few days hit me and I said slowly, “So, this is your last day at school here, right?”

Starr slowly nodded, not really looking up.

“Where’re you moving to?” I asked slowly. I sensed her reluctance to talk about it and almost didn’t want to know.

With a blank, almost emotionless voice, she replied, “Cianwood.”

I sighed as it occurred to me that I didn’t even know where Cianwood was even supposed to be. The bus jerked lightly and started moving forward, shaking up and down with each speed bump in the parking lot, and we sat there silently for several minutes.

“It’s not fair!” I suddenly exclaimed, unable to contain my thoughts. I glanced around, afraid I had brought attention upon myself, but my rant had gone unnoticed to everyone else with all the fighting and yelling going on around us. I turned back and continued. “You only just moved here a month ago. And moving on your birthday? What’s up with that?”

I had a sudden idea and asked, “Did they get divorced or something?” It always seemed like most of the people I knew had divorced parents.

“I’m not sure. My mom keeps saying that she wants me and my brother to have a better life that we couldn’t have gotten here, or something like that and never really explains. But I don’t wanna go, and I know Lexx doesn’t either,” she said, referring to her younger brother who was about Ajia’s age.

“So…since you’ll be in Johto for your twelfth birthday, which Pokémon are you gonna get?” I asked, since Starr had passed the Pokémon Handling exam at the end of second quarter in school.

“Probably Totodile. I really like Water Pokémon a lot,” she said, smiling for once.

“Cool,” I said, and then realized something. My expression brightened as I said excitedly, “Hey, if you’re gonna be a Pokémon Trainer that means you can travel anywhere you want. Right? So then you can come visit!”

I was glad and there was no other word for it. I had figured out a way around possibly never seeing Starr again.

“Okay, I hadn’t thought of that. It’ll have to be in a while when I get strong Pokémon to protect me while traveling so far, but I will.” Starr paused, as though in deep contemplation. She looked as though she wanted to tell me something else, but then decided against it and remained silent.

The ride continued monotonously like that for what seemed like forever, until finally, it stopped. I shot a glance out the window and saw that we were at Starr’s neighborhood, which was only about two miles away from mine. The time had gone by so fast. I moved to allow her to get past me as she grabbed her backpack and strode toward the front of the bus, turning back and mouthing the word “bye.” I sighed. Why? Why’d Starr have to move? I still wasn’t really sure. But somehow I knew it would be a long time until we saw each other again.

~End Prologue~
The first part of the prologue is pure foreshadowing. If you're into plot speculation, study it carefully. If it left you totally lost, don't worry, as the rest of the fic is far more straightforward—it’s filled with hints toward future events, but they're buried underneath where you don’t have to worry about them if you don’t want to.

And in case it wasn’t clear, “eve of second millennium” + “six and a half years left” = 993 and a half years have passed since the war’s end.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

This is a good story, it's coherent, and flows beautifully. The major problem is that it was a little too short, I think you should have gone a little further, and maybe got to a point that was more suspenseful before you just cut it off. My fanfic is in chapter 17, and sometimes it takes as long as three weeks for me to post again. You want to leave your readers wondering what's gonna happen next.

Like I said before, though, that's minor. I'm sure it will be adressed once you get more posted anyway. This is a very polished fic so far, though.

Thanks
It was a prologue, so I was just kind of going for a depressing flashback part of the story. The rest of it is five years later and the cliffhangers are just plain deadly.There are times when I finish a chapter and it just cuts off the story at such an exciting part that I desperately have to write the next one.
Yeah, it was short, only 3 pages on microsoft word. All my real chapters have a personal minimum of 7 pages. Most are like, ten pages, though
Anyway, I'm almost done rewriting chapter 1 so, I'll probably have it up by thursday.

Chibi Pika

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Something I must make clear is that, because my chapters are around ten pages long, they currently won't fit in the reply box, so my chapters will be posted in two pages.

NOTE: When I first wrote this chapter, I was very adamant in making sure that people did not assume this to be a Journey Fic. But all I have to say now is this--if you run away after reading Jade and Rudy's conversation just because of false journey assumptions, then you are very shallow. Of course...I'm not saying that there aren't many other reasons for you to run away from LC. xP

~Chapter 1: Death on the Mountainside~

Nov. 11, 2023 1:30 PM (Nearly five years later)

It was one of those days where you know it should be cold and yet it isn’t. The sun lay suspended in the midst of the azure skies, seemingly higher than usual and shining its warmth across the cloudless atmosphere. Hundreds of birds soared in the sky and there was only a slight breeze that carried fragments of orange and yellow leaves throughout the late autumn air. Despite this, the wind seemed to be rushing in my face, blowing my medium length dirty-blonde hair back as I flew down the hill, the downward rush increasing my speed.

I was much taller and older now—just under 5’8” but feeling as though I was six feet tall as I stood on my bike pedals and let momentum do the work. My hair blew back with the rush, and the wind streamed through the sleeves and legs of my clothes, which were not only several sizes too big, but also from the guy’s section. The fierce dragon illustration emblazoned upon my shirt ruffled with the air and represented how my liking of dinosaurs had evolved into a love of dragons over the years. And with new likings came new hobbies.

My friend Rudy and I considered ourselves bikers—not the trick kind, mind you, but we loved to have fun at the ramp and the half-pipe. We often got together after school and on weekends to hang out and improve our limited skills.

I tightly gripped the handlebars of my bike as the ground evened out into the familiar streets of the suburbs, my goal right ahead of me. There was a slight twinge of fear in the back of my mind, but I easily overlooked it with excitement building in me. I pulled up on the handlebars at the right moment as the front wheel thudded against the start of the ramp.

“Woo! Yeah!” I yelled, raising one fist towards the sky in victory as my bike seemingly flew through the air; it was incredible. Though I was only in the air for a few seconds, it seemed to take forever and I grinned at the exhilaration. I landed several feet away with a thump and gradually veered my handlebars to double back in a wide arc, turning to look at the top of the short hill.

“Nice air, Jade! Let’s see how I do!” Rudy yelled to me while speeding downward on his bike. He was about twelve years of age, short, and with dark brown hair that was nearly black and slightly spiked. His skin was tanner than mine and his eyes were dark brown and full of confidence as he raced downward. He was a risk-taker, someone who would take chances with hopes of fun, which often got us into trouble.

I sluggishly pedaled upward, still watching him race toward the ramp.

Which was why I never saw it coming.

A black blur raced out from the side of the street and skidded to a halt right in front of me. I swerved to avoid hitting it, but was then heading straight for a silver car parked on the side of the street.

“Gah!” I yelled, jerking my handlebars to the right. With a thud, I spun too far while going up the curb and toppled over, crashing with my bike in a sprawled heap on the grass, staring upward into the sky.

Suddenly I felt heavy paws on my chest. Black fur seemingly filled my entire field of vision, and the air was filled with musty, hot breath and uneven panting.

“Ow…get off, Ebony!” I yelled, shoving the dog-like creature off me. She lumbered off, but sat down less than two feet from me, apparently fighting the urge to jump on me again.

Which was the way it went when I was around her. She, of course, knew me, but still felt an odd instinctual sense of needing to “protect” her territory and owner—who was now standing next to his bike, cracking up.

“Shut up, Rudy,” I muttered, climbing to my feet and attempting to realign my handlebars—which unfortunately would end up requiring tools. I sighed and glanced back at the young dog Pokémon, who was still wagging her short, stubby tail with the apparent hope that she could play with us. “So how’d Ebony get out this time?”

“Dunno,” Rudy said, shrugging. “I guess I didn’t close the backyard up good enough. At least Chloe didn’t get away.” He grabbed Ebony’s collar and led her toward his backyard. The Houndour followed without struggle, although her reluctance showed with how slowly she dragged her jet-black paws.

“Oh, and I forgot to tell you…I get to take Ebony with me when I leave,” Rudy said as though I already knew what he was talking about.

“No. You didn’t,” I said flatly, rather annoyed at the sudden divulge of unpleasant information.

“Oh…well I am. This year I started taking the Pokémon Handling class in school like you have. Well, my parents let me apply to take the end-of-the-quarter exam.”

“Why now?” I asked. “Your twelfth birthday was in April.”

“It’s cause I had to take my third year of classes in sixth grade, so this year was my first chance to take the Pokémon Handling class and first quarter just ended a week ago,” he explained.

I sighed, as I knew altogether too well how the class credits worked. To become a Pokémon Trainer you had to have passed at least three years of semester-long courses to show a competent knowledge of Pokémon before taking the Handling class. At the end of each quarter, as long as your twelfth birthday had passed, you could qualify to take an exam. If you passed, it allowed you to become a licensed Pokémon Trainer.

Seeing as I was in ninth grade, I’d had lots of time to take most of the classes, including Battling and Strategy, Pokémon Biology, numerous Pokéspeech courses, Pokémon Evolution, Pokémon League Law, and finally this year, the Handling class. They were a nice break from Math, History, and all the other boring core classes, but with every extra course I took, I was only further reminded of how the rest of my friends had finished their classes and left to travel with their Pokémon years ago.

“It’s not fair,” I muttered. “I’ve been taking practically all of the Pokémon electives ever since forever. But did my parents let me take the test before? No, it was always something like, ‘you need to finish your middle school education,’ but now I’m in ninth grade and I’m practically fourteen and I’m only just now getting a license.”

“Wait, so you passed the test?” Rudy asked eagerly.

“Yeah, but even once I get my license, I don’t think I’ll be able to go traveling on a Pokémon Journey,” I mumbled, sighing. The main reason I was upset was that everyone else I knew had left to train and now Rudy, one of my best friends was leaving too. There was another reason as well, but I shook it from my mind quickly.

“So…what Pokémon are you gonna get if you passed?” I questioned, trying to change the subject. “You know…the Pokémon League always makes you choose one even if you have a pet Pokémon to take with you.” It was a bit of a pointless question, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“What do you mean ‘if’? Of course I passed and you know I wouldn’t pick anything other than Charmander!”

“Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes. Rudy always was a bit of a pyromaniac. When we weren’t biking, we’d go out into an empty dirt area lighting fireworks, but Rudy would always end up doing something else, like playing a game that I called “what-will-happen-if-I-light-this-on-fire?” It seemed like the small, flame-tailed lizard, Charmander would be a perfect match.

Rudy led Ebony along a rock path and past his pool to a fenced-off area of his backyard. He stepped onto the grass and over to the dog run where he opened a gate and let her in with Chloe, another puppy Pokémon of his. Chloe wagged her fluffy, cream-colored tail and rubbed her orange furred nose against the bars, but to no avail. The Growlithe then blinked her large, intelligent eyes at us in wonder before deciding to roughhouse with Ebony. Rudy glanced around the backyard and clapped a hard to his forehead.

“Nah, I wasn’t even supposed to be playing in the first place. Help me get the ramp in and then I gotta get to work.”

I groaned mentally as we ran back to the front yard, grabbed opposite ends of the ramp, and carried it to his garage, setting it in a corner next to the large piles of boxes that inhabited most of the space. He wheeled his bike in and slammed the garage shut.

“I’ll see ya, Jade,” Rudy said, running to the backyard.

“Later,” I said, swinging a leg over my bike and riding across the street to my house. Rudy wouldn’t be finished for a while so I figured that I could hang out in town for a little bit. I left my bike in the driveway and sprinted through the open garage, through a door, into the living room, and upstairs to my room. I glanced quickly around my room and grabbed my backpack from the side of the bed in the corner. I snatched my wallet up from my deck and stuffed it in my pocket, hooking the chain onto my belt loop as I raced back down the carpeted stairs.

I quickly scribbled a note to my mom on the first piece of scrap paper I could find and was about to head outside when a fluttering noise in the corner by the window made me stop. I glanced over to see a small bird Pokémon flapping his wings from atop a wooden perch. His feathers were mostly a dusty tan color except for the longer feathers on his head and tail, which were brown. He chirped occasionally, not saying anything in particular but hoping to get my attention in the smallest way possible.

“Alright, alright, Swift. You know you can come with me whenever I go for a ride,” I said, grinning and holding out my arm as the bird flew over to perch on my shoulder. I knew how boring it had to be staying inside all the time, as it was much harder for Pokémon to deal with that sort of thing than animals.

“Rrrrrr,” the Pidgey cooed as I walked outside and mounted my bike once again. Swift took flight and soared in the sky above me, occasionally chirping in contentment.

I sped down the familiar streets of Viridian City, glancing around at the numerous buildings and gas stations of the city. I didn’t intend to buy anything, but mostly I enjoyed the free time and being able to ride around aimlessly. I glanced up at the sky, taking my hands off the handlebars occasionally and thinking about everything that was going on.

Rudy was leaving. Going on a Pokémon Training journey, like everyone else.

I’d never had many friends, but it seemed like for each one that left, I always had someone still here. First Ajia three years ago, then all the aspiring trainers in my grade, and then everyone I knew in the grade below me. I didn’t even want to be a professional Pokémon Trainer; I just wanted to go with them. There wasn’t even much point in having passed the Handling exam—what good would a license do me now?

I looked up at the sky again, confused and unsure of how to feel. It took me several minutes to realize that Swift wasn’t following me anymore.

“Hey Swift?”

There was no response and still no sight of him.

“Swift!” I called out, pedaling hard to power my bike along the sidewalks. Where had he gone? He had never done this before. I headed toward the park and glanced along the fields and in the numerous pine trees, but to no avail.

“This is weird…” I muttered to myself. “Where the heck did he go?”

Almost as if on cue, the Pidgey flew over a house and soared toward me. He kept gesturing to the left with his wings, as though trying to tell me something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“*Just follow me!*” he said finally in his own language. Understanding Pokémon was fairly easy after all the Pokéspeech classes I had taken, and I rode underneath him, struggling to keep up. Occasionally he would glance back to make sure I was still following him before leading me down another side street. Finally, I saw what Swift was so excited about…

We were at the very edge of Viridian City, just at the boundary between forest and city. In the distance to the west was where I saw it. Everything was gone. Destroyed. The forests on the border between Johto and Kanto had been ravaged, leaving nothing but charred ground and a continuous stream of smoke that billowed upward into the clouds blown in from the north. The sickening stench of burning flesh greeted me, and I held an arm over my nose as I continued forward. I rode down the hill and through the Western Viridian Forest before entering the midst of the death zone, struggling to look away from the dead bodies of beasts that littered the now barren wilderness. I had been out here before, but the forests I knew were gone, and likewise, the animals and Pokémon.

“What…what happened here…?” I said, gasping in awe.

Swift swooped down to land on my shoulder, gripping it lightly with his talons as I parked my bike against a tree and proceeded to look for any signs of life. My sneakers kicked up ashes as I walked, and I finally gave up checking if any of the wild creatures were still alive after a while. Every now and then I could identify a pile of ash that had once been something living, and all the creatures that weren’t totally disintegrated were charred black and deathly still.

Finally, there came a sign of movement near a pile of burnt leaves that still had the remnants of flame burning at its edge. I shifted the ashes and found a small creature underneath.

It was still breathing.

It was a Charmander, though I was only barely able to tell. The lizard's normally glossy orange scales were burnt black, and with each breath, its body shuddered, as though it was cold despite the fact that its body was filled with warmth. When it slowly opened its eyes, they were a dull gray color rather than the large, bright blue, curiosity-filled eyes that were normally characteristic with Charmander. The scarlet and flaming-orange colored ember that normally burned on its tail was little more than a tiny flare that flickered constantly.

I wanted to clean its burns with some water I had in my backpack, but I knew that for a creature of fire, that would only make things worse. I pulled the burnt remains away from it and slowly wiped the soot off the lizard, trying not to injure its blistered skin any further.

“I wouldn’t stay here much longer if I were you.”

Startled by the sudden voice, I glanced over my shoulder to see someone standing behind me. Upon turning to see him more clearly, I noticed that he was a lot taller than I was, though probably not much older than fifteen. His hair was short, slightly wavy, and light brown colored while his eyes were an icy dark blue. He was dressed in a black shirt with a gray jacket and dull blue cargo pants.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated. “They wouldn’t want any witnesses, and—” He paused mid-sentence and suddenly asked, “Are you a Pokémon Trainer? You look old enough to be one.”

“Um, no…not yet,” I admitted. After a few seconds of awkward silence I asked, “Are you?”

“Well, I’d have to be if I wanted to carry these around,” he said, pointing to the small red and white spheres in the black holders on his pants. It was illegal to carry Poké Balls if you weren’t a licensed trainer.

Now gazing at the ravaged landscape, he muttered, “Amazing how much damage humans can cause… The fire’s spread too far, though…how are they gonna keep it unnoticed?” I wasn’t entirely sure whether he was talking to me or just commenting to himself.

“Who did this, do you know—?” I asked, picking up the Charmander and standing to my feet.

“There’s no point trying to explain it,” he interrupted, walking further in the direction I had originally been going. “Just follow me.”

I jogged quickly to catch up. “How recently did this happen?”

“So recently that it’s still happening,” was the only response. We reached the edge of a peak that overlooked an open valley between the forested hills. It was there that I saw what he was talking about.

Standing out above all else was the Pokémon of fire, a powerful and upstanding beast with the body of a lion and powerful muscles rivaled only by the strongest of all Fighting Pokémon. Its thick, blue paws struck the ground as it ran, the billowy, silk-like fur along its back ruffling with the beast’s incredible speed. Flame burst forth from its coarse brown fur, and its face was covered with brightly colored crests of yellow atop its head, red on its face, and blue along the muzzle. With each roar, it gave off an air of torment as it incinerated the surrounding area, but I could tell from the pain in its cry that this massacre was unintentional. Entei, it was called—the Beast of the Volcano, a Legendary Pokémon of living flame.

I was so awed by the legendary beast that I almost overlooked the people near it. Over fifty adults armed with powerful Pokémon or guns were pursuing Entei in jeeps surrounded by protective force fields. The giant beast constantly let loose immense blasts of fire at them, but its assaults were blocked by both the shields and powerful jets of water from the trainers’ Pokémon. Despite a blazing ring of fire that surrounded and protected it, the Entei was repeatedly struck by bullets from its pursuers.

“What—? Why…” I said, gasping. “They’re poachers aren’t they?”

“Not exactly,” he said, turning to look upon the onslaught. “Have you ever heard of Team Rocket? You should, living in a big city like Viridian.”

I thought back. Faint memories of the news surfaced at the back of my mind, yet they were obscured by time and the fact that I didn’t really pay attention to such things when I was young. “Sort of,” I replied.

“Yeah, I figured. It started out as a sort of widespread group of criminal gangsters. Then this millionaire came along and used their idea to create a huge underground organization. He recruited hundreds of members from all over Johto, Kanto, and even a few from way out in Hoenn and Sinnoh. A long time ago you probably heard about all kinds of raids on cities, mass Pokémon deaths, and other stuff. All of their recent operations are almost completely unknown to all, though.”

“How do you know then?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I figured you’d ask that,” he said, grinning. “I’m actually on the Johto Force of Team Rocket. High ranking, too, so I know pretty much everything about it and everyone on it. Plus I can do what I want and Giovanni doesn’t even know that I’m really against him.”

“Giovanni?” I asked. That was a surprise to me.

“Yeah, he’s the founder and leader of it all. You’ve probably heard of—”

“Of course I’ve heard of him,” I interrupted. “How could I not know about the leader of the Viridian Pokémon Gym? You’re saying he’s the leader?”

He nodded.

“Well...shouldn’t more people know about that, then? I mean, if the leader of some huge organization is right under everyone’s nose, then—”

“You underestimate the team’s influence,” he replied with a slight laugh. “Turning him in wouldn’t do anything. If anything, it would only mean certain death for whoever it was reported to.”

I looked back at the blazing hillside. “Shouldn’t we do something?” I asked. “I mean, if we don’t—”

“We?” he said, again laughing slightly. “You have a pet bird and a half-dead lizard, so it’d be me doing everything. And I know my limits. The dragons I train may be powerful, but they’re not fast enough to dodge repeated fire from the Rockets. They’d be shot down before getting within twenty feet of the battle.”

“Oh…” I said, my voice trailing off.

“If you’re that determined, then I’ll tell you this: with agents all over Johto and Kanto, if Team Rocket really wanted to execute a massive takeover, it’d be altogether too easy.”

I turned to him in surprise. “What?”

“The only reason they haven’t already is because they’re building up forces in case any trainers rebelled against them. That’s why they’ve taken to capturing Legendary Pokémon. If Team Rocket managed to create forces led by members with Legendaries, it’d be all over,” he explained matter-of-factly, as though Team Rocket being on the verge of world conquest was normal, everyday conversation.

“Then, what do we do about that?” I asked, confused as to why he was telling me this.

“I’ve been giving these out to a lot of people,” he said, handing me a small card. “It pretty much explains everything. If you become a trainer, but don’t really want to go around battling in Pokémon Gyms, then let me know.”

He pulled out a red and white sphere and pushed a button on it, causing it to enlarge and open. In an instant, a flash of white light burst forth from inside it and began to take the form of a huge dragon, upright and majestic. Rough, yet shiny flaming orange colored scales covered most of its thickly muscled body, save for huge, powerful blue wings. Its main characteristic was the flame that burned brightly at the tip of its tail. It was a Charizard, the fully mature form of Charmander.

He replaced the Poké Ball and climbed up onto the dragon’s back. It flexed its wings and outstretched them, flapping against the air and sending rushes of wind into my face. I held my hair against my head and watched as the reptile ascended into the sky.

“I’ll see ya,” the trainer said, soaring out of sight.

“Uh, later,” I said more to myself than him, wondering how and why I’d see him later. I looked at the small card he had given me and read.

If you have received this card, it is because you have either been recognized as either a beginning trainer with the potential for skill, or are an ambitious young trainer willing to face danger for the sake of wiping out Team Rocket. If you are serious about joining a rebellion against the Rockets, then meet in Vermilion City prior to the following date for further instruction. The cruise ship, S.S. Anne is leaving for the headquarters’ location on December 7.

Talk about anonymity. Still, it made sense, just in case Team Rocket got a hold of one of the cards. But was he really just giving them out to random trainers? Why was he doing this?

I turned back to the battle that was still continuing. It was obvious what the outcome would be, and yet I still wanted to help Entei in some way despite the fact that there was nothing that I could do. I sighed and continued to watch.

It was then that they noticed me. I was standing only about a hundred yards from the Rockets and Entei. The driver of the first jeep said something to the second, which turned abruptly and began speeding up the hill toward me.

My eyes widened. “Crap…don’t tell me they…” The realization hit me like a brick—they were coming for me…I had to run, but for some reason it was like my legs were frozen. It wasn’t until they were halfway up the hill that I finally got myself turn around and was able to take off running towards Viridian.

Swift flew alongside me as I sprinted though the woods, my heart pounding and my lungs aching, but the sudden burst of fear kept me running onward. I glanced over my shoulder—too slow, they were gaining on me. I had to reach my bike—nothing was more important than that. If I managed to, then I could make it to town before they caught me and then lose them on the side streets. Was it too far away?

I wasn’t going to make it in time. No, I had to, I had to!

The jeep sped past me and skidded to a stop in front of me. I tried to turn and run in the other direction, but the driver threw open the door and grabbed me by the back of my shirt. I tried to pull against his hold, but it was no use. The Rocket flung open the back door and threw me in the back of the jeep.

“Hey, what the—?!” I cried.

“Shut the hell up if you want to live. We’re not supposed to have any witnesses, but you might get off the hook if you just keep quiet,” the driver muttered, climbing back into the front seat and driving off. I sat up warily, wanting to look around and at least figure out the situation, but not draw attention to myself.

The driver was older than most of the others and judging by a number of badges pinned to his vest, more experienced as well. Glancing up over the seat, I could see he was a tall, burly man with thick black hair and dark eyes surrounded by a stern and commanding face.

Outside, Swift dove forward and flapped his wings quickly to fly alongside the jeep, calling out to me. He then soared in low circles above us, not seeming to want to leave. To my horror, one of the Rockets pulled out a small handgun and began shooting at Swift before the driver stopped him.

“Leave it,” he said. “It’s just a Pidgey. Doesn’t matter if it belongs to a captive.”

I quickly turned to look out the back window and saw Swift flying high up in the sky. When he seemed sure that the Rockets weren’t paying attention to him, he swooped low again and waved his wing at me. I could’ve sworn I saw him wink once before taking off to the north, toward my neighborhood.

I only just noticed that I was still holding the wounded Charmander. It was still unconscious, but also still alive. I vaguely noticed that we were nearing the main streets of Viridian…would it be possible for me to yell for help? No…I almost immediately realized that all of the windows were up now, and each of the Rockets was armed. There was no way out of this.

I slowly sank back down onto the floor, staring blankly ahead with a bizarre feeling of numbness spreading through my body. There was nothing I could possibly do. My life was in the Rockets’ hands. It…it had all happened too fast for me to make sense of anything—a nagging past of my subconscious kept screaming that I was going to die. I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself, but my breathing still felt shallow.

We continued heading east until we were once again away from the city. Finally, the jeep skidded to a halt in a small area that was mostly cleared of trees. I couldn’t see anything from the back window, and the Rockets in the front seats were blocking my view in front of the car. The driver got out and slammed the door.

I leaned forward to see out the back seat window and watched as he leaned over and lifted up a small hatch in the grass. Underneath were a keypad and a small screen. He pushed in a long and complicated password and closed the hatch.

“Identification confirmed. Proceed,” a computerized voice stated. I was stunned to see the ground starting to sink, revealing a sort of ramp that descended into darkness. He walked back and got into the car again before driving down. As we neared the end of the tunnel, the entrance behind us closed and I could see lights far ahead in the distance. We emerged into an immense, dimly lit underground hangar. The driver parked the jeep in an area to the side after skidding to a halt. The Rockets got out of the car and the driver opened the back hatch, grabbing my wrist and jerking me out. I held onto the Charmander lightly with my right arm. “Remember what I said. Just shut up and don’t do anything stupid,” he said, leading me toward what looked like an office door. He left me outside the door and walked inside.

So this was where it would end… I tried to shove the thoughts like that out of my mind, but even if that wasn’t the case, I didn’t want to think about what a Team Rocket prison would be like. And…what if I was right and the Rockets decided it was better to just kill me and get it over with? Unable to stand the suspense any longer, I leaned my ear against the door and tried to hear snatches of their conversation.

“So? How did it all go?” someone asked. His voice sounded younger than my captor’s, though from his dominating tone of voice and the way the other acted slightly submissive, I assumed that he was higher ranking.

“I left the rest of the squad behind to deal with an…unwanted witness…” the driver said.

“How much did they see?”

“Enough for her to know about our plans to capture the Legendary Pokémon.”

“You idiot!” the other Rocket yelled. “Did you even consider the fact that she may not have really known anything about our mission at all?! Sure, she reports some poaching of a Legendary Pokémon, big deal. No one would have any idea that it was us. But now she sure as hell knows too much. Honestly, Tyson, I don’t even know why I—”

“Should I just kill her?” he interrupted. My heart skipped a beat when he said that.

“No…” the other sighed. I could hear the rustling of papers. “Just—”

At once, I heard the beeping of what sounded like a cell phone. Tyson answered it and, after listening for a few seconds, said something quietly and turned it off.

“Well?” the other Rocket asked impatiently.

“Shortly after I left, it seemed to the others that Entei was going to escape into the Tohjo Mountains, so they called for backup from any nearby Johto agents. Turns out, some kid was the one who threw the ball that caught Entei, only now he doesn’t really want to give it up and he’s waiting for instruction from the Supreme Commander of the Johto Force,” Tyson reported.

“Well, even though Giovanni’s the boss, he really doesn’t have much rule over what the Johto Force does…”

“Yes, I know…and just stick the girl on the transport jet. Let the Executives at the secondary headquarters deal with what to do with her.”

I breathed a sigh of relief after hearing that…my situation hadn’t improved, but simply knowing that I wasn’t dead yet was enough to make me feel better. A few seconds later, however, I heard footsteps coming toward the door. I jumped back and pretended as though I hadn’t been doing anything. Tyson opened the door and again took hold of my wrist and led me to another area. I followed without struggle, knowing that rebelling would only get me shot.

“Okay, I know you heard what we said in there, so you know what’s going on, and you better not cause any problems,” he threatened menacingly.

I was then that I noticed the large, gray airplane that was in the opposite corner of the hangar. Several mechanics seemed to be making sure everything was in order, and other Rockets were loading supplies into the cargo hold. Tyson also escorted me to the cargo bay. Large boxes filled the area and more crates were being loaded in. I was thrown into a small, metal room along the side, and the door was left open. A few minutes later, another Rocket came over, jerked my backpack from me, and looked through it before shoving it back into my arms. After checking all my pockets and deciding I had no weapons or Poké Balls on me, he pulled the Charmander from my arms and chained my hands and feet to the wall.

“What about the kid’s Charmander?” the Rocket called out to someone outside of the room.

The Rocket set the Charmander on the floor and shoved it towards me before closing the door.

“What should we do about the other kids?” he asked.

Other kids? I wasn’t aware that others had been kidnapped as well and Tyson didn’t seem to know what the Rocket meant either. “What other kids?” he questioned.

“Another prisoner we’ve had for a while and some other kid we caught snooping around the entrance a minute ago.”

“There’s only one cell, just lock ‘em in a supply closet or something…” Tyson said, his voice growing distant. Several minutes later, I heard the thunk of a heavy door being closed and the steadily growing roar of engines. I could feel the speed increase and was slanted backward as the plane maneuvered uphill. I guessed that the plane was heading up the long ramp that I came in by, and I could feel when the wheels left the ground.

The time alone in the cell inevitably led to my thoughts straying back toward what was going to happen to me. It was always the sort of thing that you assumed would happen to somebody else. My mind kept telling me that I was going to be killed, and no matter how many times I shoved the thought out of my head, it kept coming back.

I had to do something. I didn’t plan on having my fate in the hands of some Executive Rocket. With a quick glance around the cell, I spotted a small coil of wire sticking out of a mechanism in the corner. I figured that I could try picking the lock if I could just reach it, but it was too far away.

I looked down and saw the Charmander at my feet finally regaining consciousness. It swayed a little before eventually standing to its feet.

“Hey, how’re ya feeling?” I asked it.

It turned suddenly toward me in shock. The lizard gave a light whimper and glanced around nervously, as though wondering how it had gotten there.

“I guess this must be pretty surprising, and I don’t know if you can walk yet, but could you try to hand me that coil of wire over there?” I asked, although it occurred to me that while tame Pokémon could learn the language their trainer spoke in an incredibly short amount of time, the wild Charmander had probably never heard English in its life.

I was puzzling over how to the repeat the instructions in Pokéspeech, but then it went over, pulled up the thin loop of metal out of the machine, and placed it into my hand. I grasped a part near the end in my fingers, bent it over to make it thicker, and stuck the wire into the keyhole on a shackle.

I really had little idea what I was doing, but after ten minutes I finally managed to free my right arm. After that, I was able to reach the other shackles easier and had figured out the trick to unlocking them. Finally, I shook the last chain off my left foot, picked up my backpack, and unlocked the door into the cargo bay.

I looked around in the midst of all the boxes and crates. The Rockets had said it was a transport jet, but for what? I opened the nearest and looked inside to find a large array of Technical Machines intended for teaching powerful techniques to Pokémon. I closed the crate and glanced through some others. Finally, I found one with first-aid items for Pokémon. I picked up the first thing I could find and read the label.

“’Full Restore: Guaranteed to soothe burns, frostbite, poison, rashes, cause open wounds to scab and heal any other damage done from battle to your Pokémon’…sounds good.” I turned around and beckoned to the Charmander, which was still standing near the cell door and glancing around apprehensively. I held up the Full Restore and it seemed to understand what the item was…maybe it had been around humans before?

I walked over and sprayed the liquid all over the Charmander’s skin. The lizard winced slightly, but soon enough, the charred flesh slowly regained its normal color, leaving only bits of scar tissue in some areas on its back. I was impressed with how well it worked, but still dug through the box. Charmander may have been healed, but it was still exhausted and completely drained of power.

Finally, I found something to fix that: a Max Elixir. I knew that they could make even the most worn out Pokémon completely full of energy. It had absolutely no healing power whatsoever, which was why it was good that I had already taken care of that. There was a famous battle in which a terribly wounded Pokémon was given an energy serum and sprung to its feet, fighting again even though it was bleeding all over. That was before it was made illegal for trainers to use healing items during a tournament battle.

I twisted the cap off and poured a small amount into Charmander’s mouth. Almost in an instant, the tiny flare on its tail burst into full flame. It looked up at me, eyes bright blue and attentive before looking down at itself in confusion, as though wondering how it was back to normal.

Since it seemed to understand English for whatever reason, I kneeled and said, “You doing better?” It nodded slowly, seeming to be at least decently comfortable with my presence.

“Okay, Charmander, I know you don’t—” I stopped. I was sick of calling it “Charmander” although I knew most Pokémon didn’t mind being called their species name. “What’s your name?” I asked.

It hesitated before replying, “*Firestorm.*”

I nodded, although I couldn’t help but snicker slightly in my mind. Most Pokémon came up with nicknames for themselves that were composed of combining several fitting words, but Firestorm sounded like it was made up by some kid trying to sound cool.

“Okay, and, uh, are you a guy or a girl?” I asked.

“*I’m male,*” he said before noticing something all of a sudden and walking over to the other side of the cargo bay.

I followed him and saw several Pokémon that had been sedated and put in cages. A laminated piece of paper was taped heavily to the top of each cage. I chose the nearest and read.

Experimental Pokémon #009

Pikachu that was implanted with tiny amounts of Zapdos DNA as an embryo. Experiment failure. Increase in power levels, possession of unique abilities, and rebellious disposition as possible results. Discovered side effects include inability to expel power for prolonged amounts of time and unstable chemical makeup.

I looked inside the cage, where the Pikachu was unconscious. Its back rose lightly with each breath and its short, stiff yellow fur quivered slightly. It was small and mouse-like but still seemed larger than normal. Its ears were long with black tips, and its tail was rigid and shaped like a jagged lightning bolt. One look at its face, and you could easily tell that it was a hybrid; it lacked the red cheeks of Pikachu, and its fur was long and pointed on the back of its head, like the feathers of the legendary bird Zapdos.

“*Do you think we could free them?*” Firestorm asked.

“Well, you don’t need my consent,” I said, shrugging. Right then, Firestorm began shooting the flame out of his tail into a narrow stream like a blowtorch, attempting to melt the locks. For several minutes he worked, prying the molten metal away with his tiny claws and opening each cage one by one. He was melting the last lock when the Pikachu woke up. It shakily stood to its feet, blinked, and looked around. The second it noticed the cage was open, it bolted out of its prison, streaking up to the highest point it could reach and sending surges of electricity flying around. Lightning flew wild as it streaked out of the Pikachu’s body.

“No, don’t!” I yelled, finding myself filled with a sudden panic that it would end up damaging the plane in its outburst. Firestorm jumped behind me, looking terrified.

The Pikachu turned at the sound of my voice and sent sparks flying in our direction, its eyes filled with rage. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a door opening and turned.

“Wha—what the hell?!” Tyson yelled, walking into the cargo area.

“Uhh, hey…” I said awkwardly.

He looked from the Pikachu to me and finally to the other freed Pokémon, which were still under the effects of the sedation. He then pulled out a small black sphere—some sort of modified Poké ball. The flash of light from within it took the form of a huge green praying mantis with an exoskeleton that was hard and plated like armor. Its blank, pupil-less eyes flared with mindless hatred from a somewhat reptilian green head. It flashed its impressive scythe-lined arms, seemingly cutting the very air.

“We kept all the successful experiments for ourselves. This one happens to be my personal favorite,” Tyson said proudly. “Razors, attack!!!”

At once, it lifted from the ground, zooming toward us with lightning speed, the urge to kill blazing in its eyes.

~End Chapter 1~
The mutant Pikachu and the other experiments are mine.

Rar.

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 1st July 2008 at 1:40 AM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Still I am impressed,
I love Charmander, and I'm anxious to see where this goes. The only concern I have is that the "Catch all Legendaries" plot seems a little contrived. I'm also interested in the different factions of Team Rocket. Keep posting, but I hope to keep reading.

Thanks for the reply, this next chapter, as the name suggests puts a lot of emphasis on the mutated Pikachu and the jet... And the "Catch all Legendaries thing"...well, I only really put about two chapters like that in the fic...most of the legendary type things happen later and the early plot is character development and tension building. Anyhoo...here's chapter 2, which took me FOREVER to do, and, like chapt. 1, it's ten pages long, so I have to post it in two pieces.

Note: Yes, I know the chapter title is retarded. So sue me, I thought it was soooo clever when I came up with it. (Hey, I was 14, okay?)

~Chapter 2: Pikachu, We Have a Problem~

The Pikachu bounded off the crates, eager for a challenge, lightning coursing throughout its fur. It streaked across the steel floor like a bullet to meet its opponent. Both combatants raced around with lightning speed. Razors the Scyther repeatedly slashed with its blade arms only to find Pikachu darting out of harm’s way instantly. Would it be better for us if Tyson won this fight? Just whose side was the Pikachu on?

Firestorm glanced first at me and then towards the ragging battle, seemingly filled with newfound conviction. It almost looked like he wanted to help, but I stopped him. He looked up at me in wonderment. With a sigh, I said, “Look…I really don’t think you should get in the way of them. The Scyther’s on a mad rampage and the Pikachu looks like it’s two seconds away from blowing up the plane along with itself.”

Firestorm looked down and nodded. I turned back to the battle and couldn’t help feeling a sudden twinge of pity for the experimental Pikachu. It was raised as a lab specimen before finally being disregarded as a failure. Maybe that was the reason why it seemed to loathe every living thing in sight.

“Scyythaaar!” Razors yelled slicing boxes in two. In its mad rush to attack Pikachu, it was destroying everything. The electric rat bounded off a crate just as the Scyther slashed the crate in two. Small boxes on top of smashed crates fell to the ground, shattering. A package labeled “Confiscated Poké Balls” opened, scattering the small red and white spheres across the floor. Realization hit me—those had to have belonged to the other captives.

Suddenly and without thinking, I grabbed the Poké Balls and retreated behind one of the many mountains of supplies, ensuring that I was out of sight before I opened the balls and released the Pokémon. In a quick, bright flash of light, they emerged and it was then that I realized what a stupid idea it was. Without their trainers, the Pokémon would probably end up going on a rampage like the Pikachu. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Seemingly the most powerful of the group was the Typhlosion, a powerful and upright beast with sleek black and tan fur and blazing orange and yellow rings of fire burning from the flesh on its neck. Four of the others were also large and powerful and stood with the Typhlosion, separate from the other Pokémon. I gazed in admiration upon the proud and confident fighters.

One of them I easily knew to be a Pidgeot, the adult form of Pidgey. It stood nearly as tall as me, with dull dusty brown-colored plumage and long red and yellow feathers trailing off its head. Another was an immense dog-like Pokémon similar to Rudy’s Growlithe. Its massive frame was heavily muscled and powerful, with dark orange fur striped with black like that of a tiger and large patches of fluffy off-white fur covering its legs, head, and tail. The third resembled a huge, blue-white seal with a horn atop its head for generating ice assaults. The last was a gray wolf Pokémon with long capes of black fur running down its back. It appeared younger than the others and had probably only just evolved into its mature form.

“Whoever owns those has probably been a trainer for a long time,” I muttered to myself. Then I saw the other Pokémon: smaller, weaker ones that weren’t anywhere near as cool and confident as the first group. One was a small, bipedal, bright blue scaled turtle with a thick brown shell on its back and large brown eyes; the other was a dog Pokémon with short, midnight-black fur and shackled paws. It looked incredibly familiar.

A Houndour?

Then it saw me. With a mischievous grin, it leaped up onto its hind legs and put its paws against my chest, trying to lick my face. There was no doubt about it now.

“Ebony?” I blurted suddenly. “Wha—how’d you get here? And in a Poké ball?”

With a flutter something soared down from above me and landed on my shoulder. I turned and was in for another surprise when I saw the bird perched there.

“What is going on here?! Swift? Ebony?” I exclaimed, confused. And then I realized what it all meant. The box had read “Confiscated Poké Balls.” Rudy was here…somehow.

Taking care not to get caught in the still continuing clash between Pikachu and Scyther, I ran over to the supply closet and saw that it was locked from the outside. I glanced over my shoulder; I still was hidden from both Tyson and the experiments. I opened the door, hoping that the Rocket had done as Tyson said and put the other captives in there.

“Whoa, what the—” someone inside said. Two guys were in the closet, one standing on the other’s shoulders trying to reach something, when the first one lost his balance and fell out. One of them was Rudy; the other looked to be a year older than me and about my height with thick, dirty blonde hair. He had on a green T-shirt and baggy blue jeans.

“I knew I’d be able to get us out!” Rudy said climbing off the other one. The other guy sighed and shook his head. “What’re you talking about, you didn’t get us out, that girl opened the door.”

“Huh…Jade!” Rudy said all of a sudden, standing up. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“When I finished doing my chores, my dad got home and didn’t even know I did ‘em late. He said he’d talked to one of my teachers and I passed the Pokémon exam. I got my license and a Pokémon and wanted to show you, but you weren’t home. Then Swift flew over and kept trying to lead me into the forest. I followed him and saw several jeeps driving down an underground ramp thing. Then I got caught,” he explained.

“So that’s why your Pokémon were in Poké Balls. You had to recall Swift into one when you were caught, right?” He nodded. “But what’s with the Squirtle?” I asked. The turtle Pokémon had walked over and stood by his leg when we were talking.

“Oh…they didn’t have any Charmander at the nearest place where you register with the Pokémon League. I had to settle for Squirtle…or else wait a few more weeks until they got some more,” Rudy said. “So I guess you released all the Pokémon along with Spencer’s—that’s the other guy’s name, by the way.” I turned to see Spencer picking up the scattered Poké Balls and recalling all of his Pokémon except the Typhlosion back into their Poké Balls. He handed Rudy’s Poké Balls back to him.

“Oh, Jade…here,” Rudy said, recalling his Pokémon into their Poké Balls and giving me the empty one I had released Swift from. “I don’t need it since this one now only works for Swift.” Right…what he had said was true…once a Pokémon was captured by one, the Poké Ball would only work for that specific Pokémon. I took the ball from his hand and recalled Swift, leaving Firestorm still standing by my side.

“You got any plans on how we’re supposed to get outta here?” I asked Spencer.

“Err, not really…though Typhlosion here could definitely be a big help,” he replied.

We were all still in the corner by the supply closet, hidden from view by a mountain of crates. Spencer strode over to where Tyson was still battling against the experimental Pikachu. Blackened remains of boxes littered the “battlefield.” I was glad we were in such a large plane—a battle would have been impossible otherwise.

“Stupid experiment,” Tyson muttered. “Its heightened power made it practically impossible to defeat through speed or physical force. And I’m not allowed to kill it, so I gotta knock out the damn thing before it blasts the plane itself with one of its Thunder attacks.”

The Pikachu, however, was worn out. It sparked uncontrollably and gasped for breath, struggling to stay in the fight. The Scyther was just as bad off, with huge electrical burns completely covering its body.

“Wha—how’d you get out?!” Tyson yelled suddenly, noticing Spencer and his Typhlosion.

“Err, is that a trick question?” he asked, snickering slightly.

Tyson swore furiously under his breath before pulling out two more black Poké Balls and releasing more experimental Pokémon. Bursts of black light took the shape of the modified beasts. The first one, a Rhyhorn, pawed the floor with its forelegs, its rock-armored, rhinoceros-like body tensing up as it braced itself mindlessly for any commands and lifted its oversized horn at us.

The other Pokémon stood considerably shorter, yet glared just as menacingly with its blank eyes. It outstretched its huge, blade-clawed forelegs and let the sleek black fur covering its weasel-like body stand on end, raising the pink fins on its back and head apprehensively.

“Alright, Typhlosion, let’s see how tough those Pokémon really are,” Spencer said. Typhlosion bellowed its battle call and charged forward into the fray.

Lightning flew wild. The Pikachu, enraged at the interruption between its clash with Razors, shot sparks wildly at Typhlosion and the Rhyhorn and Sneasel. Seizing the chance, the Scyther streaked toward it, blades flashing. In an instant, Typhlosion shot a spurt of burning flame at Razors. The Scyther stopped just short of slicing Pikachu to attempt to avoid the Flamethrower attack.

Pikachu turned and refocused its attention on Razors and finally was able to hit the Scyther with all its power. Caught in the midst of the attacks, Razors was struck by the lightning and hit by the flame, despite its incredible speed. It was caught in the rush of power, unable to move as the electricity drained its energy and the fire seriously burned it.

“Scyy!” it cried out pitifully before dropping to the floor, exhausted and in pain. Tyson pulled out its Poké Ball and swore again while recalling it. “Alright,” Tyson said after a long time. “You beat my best Pokémon.”

“That means we’re in charge now,” Spencer said matter-of-factly. “Tell the pilot to land this plane at one of your Rocket headquarters and let us off…and also get us pizza,” he added as an afterthought.

Tyson stared irritably, but then with a slight smirk he said, “This isn’t over just yet. You know by now that the early failed experiments are incredibly unstable.” He nodded toward the Pikachu. “Can’t even control when they use their own power once in battle. Though that just makes battle more interesting.” He then retrieved a small device from his pocket and pushed several buttons on it. At once, the other sedated experiments in the cages sprung to their feet with the urge to fight. The Pikachu gained a blank look in its eyes and started to walk toward Tyson with the other Pokémon, but then jumped back, sparking again.

“Never could control that thing like the others,” Tyson commented. “Alright, attack!”

“This won’t work, there’s too many Pokémon fighting,” I said to Rudy. “Sooner or later, one of their attacks is gonna miss and hit the inside of the plane.” Then I realized that that wouldn’t happen. The experimental Pokémon were only using their physical attacks—except the Pikachu, that is. It continued to let its electricity fly wildly throughout the battle. Although it couldn’t manage its power and seemed to just discharge energy at random, it had incredible control over where it sent its attacks; not one of its lightning bolts had hit the plane itself.

But it was suffering. It had let out all of its energy and couldn’t generate any more power. It made one last attempt to jump over the Pokémon and blast them all, but failed. It fell to the ground and collapsed off to the side of the plane.

It was separate from the rest of the Pokémon fighting, so I ran over and picked it up. It glared up at me and attempted to create enough power to shock me, but came up with nothing but sparks.

“What’re you doing?” Rudy said, walking over. “It could blast you like it did to that Scyther.”

“Pikachu’s out of power and, well, I think it sucks that it’s just been tossed off as a failure like that. Besides, Tyson’s got all his Pokémon out to get it.”

At once, Pikachu stood up in my arms and yelled, “*First of all, I’m a guy, not an ‘it.’ And my name’s not Pikachu, it’s Chibi.*”

Chibi? The name sounded kind of…small and cute: not really fitting for the personality. Ignoring the thought, I said, “Fine, you could’ve told me sooner.”

Chibi was about to say something, but then he stopped. “*Oh, you can—*”

“Yes, I can understand you,” I said irritably.

He stared at me for several seconds before leaping out of my arms and running away.

“Wait, come back!” I yelled, but he continued to race forward toward the front of the plane.

I hoped he knew what he was doing…cause I sure didn’t know what I was doing. Spencer and Chibi were the only ones involved in the fight against Tyson’s experiments. I felt really awkward just standing there and watching it with Rudy.

It was then that the plane lurched suddenly. We all were knocked off our feet when it jerked to the right and started to move in a completely different direction. The battle ceased.

Tyson yelled a sentence that seemed to be made almost entirely of cuss words before storming off to the front of the plane toward the cockpit. He threw open the door and was about to rant some more but stopped.

“Wha…what the—?!” he said.

I couldn’t help it. I ran over to look inside. When I did, I had to desperately try to keep from bursting out laughing.

The pilot was knocked out on the floor, and Chibi was in his seat, tilting the control wheel in random directions and rapidly pushing as many buttons as he possibly could.

“Get outta here!” Tyson yelled.

Chibi glared at him before muttering something that sounded to me like “drop dead” and letting sparks cover his body. He had obviously charged up limited energy in the past minute. I noticed what that meant at about the same time as Tyson did.

“No, wait!” he yelled, lunging forward and slamming a button with his fist.

In charging up power while still using the controls, Chibi automatically discharged his energy into the plane. The control panel short-circuited and shot sparks everywhere.

“You stupid rat!” Tyson ranted. “You almost blew the controls with the plane on manual! We’d all be dead now if I hadn’t switched to autopilot!” Chibi showed no reaction and his face seemed blank of emotion.

“Are we gonna crash?” Spencer asked a bit frantically.

“No, stupid, Team Rocket jets can withstand having the controls blown, and the engines are still fine,” he said.

The second Tyson said that, I swear I knew exactly what would happen next. Chibi was raised in captivity. He knew English.

I glanced at the pilot seat. Chibi was gone.

“No, Chibi!” I yelled running out of the cockpit and toward the back of the jet, where the engines were. Chibi looked back at me with…almost an apologetic look and drew more energy from within him than should have been possible. He then fired his last ounce of remaining power in the form of a neon lightning bolt and collapsed.

Everything happened so fast. Chibi’s electricity blew a hole through the back of the plane. A massive explosion blew me back toward the cockpit. In an instant, Spencer pulled out a Poké Ball to release his Dewgong, the white seal I had seen before. Its horn shone with a bright blue light as a wave of water streamed forward from its mouth. The second the flame burning from the explosion had been doused, it fired an immense glowing beam from its horn that completely sealed the gaping hole with huge, glittering ice crystals.

The opening may have been closed, but that didn’t change the fact that the plane no longer had an engine. I sprinted over to the window in panic. We were quickly losing altitude.

“Oh, don’t waste your time worrying,” Tyson said, rolling his eyes and pushing a red button on the wall.

Large rockets on the wings turned on, bursting out jets of stored energy and causing the plane to even out, but we were still descending slowly.

“The power for the extra jet packs is separate from the rest of the plane. It wasn’t affected by the electricity,” Tyson explained.

“Is there any way we could land normally?” I asked.

“The Pikachu screwed the controls. The chances of us just happening to land at the base we were supposed to would be a million to one, not to mention that we’re way off course now.”

“So…we’re gonna crash?” I asked.

“What is it with you guys and us crashing? I’ve got it under control,” he said. “With the controls messed up, we’d normally just go in a straight line, slowly descending until we ran out of fuel and crashed. But if I lower the power, we’ll go lower. If I can time it right, I can make so that we’re pretty damn close to the ground when the fuel runs out. It’ll be rough, but I think it’ll work.”

I didn’t ask how long it would take. Tyson seemed really ticked at the whole situation. Probably the only reason he didn’t just kill us outright was because he wasn’t supposed to be the one to deal with us. For what seemed like hours but was probably only slightly less than one hour, Spencer and Rudy talked a bit, and I stared out the window in silence while Tyson handled the rockets on the wings.

I looked over and noticed that Chibi was still unconscious at the back of the plane. I walked over, picked him up, and sat on a crate, holding him. Firestorm walked over and sat next to me. I had almost forgotten about him.

In an instant, the plane jerked up and shook violently. We were thrown to the floor and were once again caught under the falling crates and boxes, which, fortunately for us, were completely emptied by now, but I was covered in all sorts of loose items. Tyson pounded the button that he had pushed before and the jetpacks shut off. He struggled to make his way to the cockpit. Several seconds afterward, the plane slowed to a jerky stop. After sifting through the supplies, I looked out the window and saw that we were surrounded by the forest and in a clearing of grass at the base of an immense towering mountain.

Rudy crawled out from under a mound of boxes. “Man, why didn’t ya warn us?!” he asked, irritated.

“What, you think I care?” came Tyson’s response.

“Well, could you at least tell us where we are?” Spencer asked.

“Most likely near Mt. Moon,” he answered.

“And where were we ‘supposed to’ land?”

“What’s it to you, you’ll be there soon anyway,” Tyson said, as though this was obvious.

“What?” I asked, turning from the window.

“Jeez, you all are more stupid than I thought. You honestly didn’t anticipate reinforcements?” he asked, grinning at the anger and confusion in our faces.

“But, when Chibi sabotaged the controls, that should’ve killed the radios,” I said.

“Who needs radios? All Rockets have a private communicator issued to them,” he said. “And why do you keep calling it Chibi? What, you wanna make it a pet or somethin’?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Rudy whispered in my ear, “There’s three of us, think we all can take him down?”

I groaned. “Rudy, no offense, but you’re barely even five feet tall, and I doubt either of us knows how to fight. And Pokémon-wise, it’d be Spencer doing all the work. We don’t even at least have the advantage of having Chibi in the fight against Tyson’s experiments.”

Spencer walked over and sat down next to us like Rudy had. “I think we should run for it,” he said. “Your Charmander could melt the ice at the back of the plane.”

“Hey, what are you all whispering about!” Tyson yelled all of sudden.

Spencer leaned closer. “Think we should?” I turned to Rudy. We both nodded at the same time.

Rudy and I took off running in an instant. Spencer pulled out his Poké Ball and released his Typhlosion. The large flame beast roared and stood between Tyson and us.

“I knew it!” he yelled, pulling out his black Poké Balls again to release the experimental Pokémon. “You aren’t escaping so easily!”

“Escape? Who’s trying to escape? No one would try anything like that with us here on the job!” Spencer exclaimed with mock determination.

I turned back to what I was supposed to be doing and ignored Spencer’s diversion. “Alright, Firestorm,” I said. “Couldja help us break through this ice?” I asked, gesturing toward the huge crystals. He nodded and inhaled deeply, exhaling out a long, narrow stream of orange flame that burst through the ice. The flame was small, though, so he had to do it several times to make a hole big enough for us to get through.

“Alright, that’s good, c’mon, Spencer!” I yelled.

We all ran toward the opening while Spencer’s Typhlosion stayed back to fend off the experiments. I jumped out through the hole and landed on the twisted remains of the jet’s engine. From there, I jumped to the ground and although I landed on my feet, it still hurt from being fairly high. Rudy and Spencer jumped out after me, followed finally by the Typhlosion. Several seconds later, the ice shattered into millions of tiny shards as the experimental Rhyhorn burst through to land on the ground behind us, its thick, rock-hard hide absorbing the impact. As it pawed the ground and lifted its horn at us, it looked even more like a rhino than before.

“We’ll help your Typhlosion so your other Pokémon can save their energy for the ‘reinforcements,’” I said before nodding to Rudy. We had just pulled out our Poké Balls to release Swift, Ebony, and Squirtle, but I then noticed that the battle seemed to be going nowhere. Tyson hadn’t signaled his Pokémon to attack and was looking out in the distance. “Right on time,” he mumbled.

“What…?” I said, turning to see several vehicles far off in the distance. “Wha—how’d they get here so fast?! We only crash landed like, five minutes ago!”

“I actually figured out that we’d crash near here when I was handling the wing rockets. I told the others in advance when I called them,” Tyson explained, grinning.

“Ugh, this day just gets more insane by the minute!” Rudy exclaimed before we took off running. We soon realized, of course, that that wouldn’t do any good. The Rockets would catch us anyway.

“Well, you think this would be a good time to go ahead and release all my Pokémon?” Spencer asked with a touch of sarcasm as he pulled out his Poké Balls.

I laughed slightly and simply responded, “Yeah, I’d think so,” as he released the remainder of his Pokémon in a flash of white light. By now, we could see the jeeps that were rapidly getting closer. Spencer’s Pokémon shifted nervously.

And then I felt the movement in my arms.

I looked down and saw Chibi struggling to stand and jump away, but this time he was truly out of energy.

“No, you gotta save your strength,” I said to him. He looked up at me and attempted to create electricity, but failed. He lay back in my arms, swearing under his breath.

The jeeps pulled up and skidded to a stop, throwing dust into the air. Tyson jumped down from the plane and walked over with his Pokémon. He glanced at the Rockets in the jeeps before finally finding one that he wanted to talk to. I couldn’t really see the Rocket from the distance and angle I was at, but I could hear snatches of conversation.

“You know, Tyson, when you said the transport jet was gonna crash I never guessed it’d be ‘cause of a couple kids that you were supposed to be bringing to me.” The voice was that of a girl, and evidently, she was the Rocket Executive I was supposed to be taken to.

“They’re not just kids. One of em’s older than the others and his Pokémon are a match even for my experimental Poké —” Tyson said.

“It was what I was assigned to do!” Tyson yelled. “Of course you wouldn’t know what that’s like cause the second you joined you were—”

“I was NOT always an Executive, and I’m sick of people always thinking that for me!” she yelled. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about and I was especially confused at the fact that the Executive’s voice and overall way of talking made her sound like a teenager. She probably was, but I was surprised that someone so young could be ranked an Executive on Team Rocket.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, I’ll deal with them,” she said, climbing out of the jeep. And then she stopped and stared long and hard at us. I couldn’t see why, but regardless of that, the motion of pulling out a Poké Ball was as recognizable as ever.

From the Poké Ball burst out a flash of bright light that moved toward us with incredible speed even as it took its true form. It was an Arcanine, almost identical to Spencer’s, with its thick orange and black coat and fluffy cream-colored mane. The firedog moved toward us swiftly and it was then that I could see the differences between the Rocket’s and Spencer’s Arcanine.

The mighty Pokémon was much larger for one, but its eyes had a certain ferocity only seen in one who has defeated nearly all they have challenged. It gave off an air of pure arrogance, the attitude of a seasoned fighter. Right then I realized that all of our Pokémon could never defeat all of the Rocket’s Pokémon.

“Arcanine, cut off their escape and defeat that Typhlosion!” the Rocket yelled, her hand on another Poké Ball in case it was needed.

I was lost on what to do. Spencer looked as though he had just realized how hopeless the whole situation was. Rudy however, took off running behind us and yelled, “We can hide and attack from behind there so that her Pokémon wouldn’t be able to directly attack us!”

I looked back and saw a ridge of rock jutting out from the mountain. What Rudy said made sense.

“There’s nothing else we can do!” Spencer said, recalling his Dewgong because it couldn’t run.

We sprinted after Rudy toward the rock wall, the Arcanine not far behind. Spencer’s Typhlosion had stayed behind to protect us, but things weren’t looking good. Despite the speed characteristic to Typhlosion, the Arcanine had managed to get in three slashes with its claws, only mildly burned in one place, while Typhlosion’s fur was already scorched.

We reached the ridge and ducked back behind it. Spencer recalled his Typhlosion right before releasing, once again, the icy white seal known as Dewgong. The Arcanine let its whole body glow with flame before unleashing an immense wave of fire.

“DUUUUUgong gong gong!!!” Dewgong cried, shooting out a surge of water to meet the flame. Despite the Arcanine’s incredible power, the water extinguished the bulk of the attack, leaving only small spurts of flame that hit the rock and died.

Of course, if the Arcanine really wanted to attack Dewgong, it could go around the rocks, but we could ambush it if it did. The Arcanine seemed to realize that and didn’t come after us. Several seconds later, we heard the charging of more Pokémon. And then the obvious flaw in our spur of the moment strategy showed. We hadn’t really thought about what would happen if we had to face multiple opponents.

Not the end of the chappie yet, of course....

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 28th June 2008 at 2:34 AM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Spencer clenched his teeth and said to his Pokémon, “Just wait for ‘em, guys.”

The second the Rockets’ Pokémon turned the corner, Spencer yelled for all of his Pokémon to attack. Rudy’s initial idea for hiding behind there worked—at first. Caught off guard, the Rockets’ Pokémon were struck by several of the attacks. The victory was short-lived, however. Tyson’s Rhyhorn and Sneasel and the Arcanine were among our attackers, only now there were three others as well.

The first and fastest was a Ponyta, a fairly small, off white horse, with a mane and tail made entirely of long streams of fire. The second, a Magmar, was an upright and vaguely reptilian creature with an orange beak, shiny crimson skin, and yellow flame patterns from its waist down. The last one greatly resembled Chibi in that it was a Raichu, the mature form of Pikachu. The rodent’s short fur was smooth and dull orange with a white belly, and its tail was long, black, and skinny except for the part at the end, which was yellow and jagged.

But though it resembled Chibi, when I looked in its eyes I saw nothing but blank confidence. Not like the weird combination of rage and torment that Chibi seemed to give off. Right then, I wondered at exactly how much like Pikachu Chibi was. With normal Pokémon, you could see intelligence, emotion, and thought in their eyes, but with Chibi, it was sort of like there was more to his expression and emotion than there was even to humans’. I had a sudden wonder why Pokémon were treated like animals. Most of them were much more powerful than humans were and smarter too. Humans were so backwards. We controlled our superiors.

I was shaken from my thoughts to see Spencer’s Pokémon losing badly. He had just recalled the ice seal in a beam of red, but I put down Chibi and turned to Firestorm, who had been standing next to me for the past few minutes. I pulled out of my pocket one of the few things I had salvaged from the items in the plane. I knelt and held out the item to him. It was small and red, shaped mainly like a flat case that was open at the front to reveal a CD-sized disc.

“It’s a Technical Machine,” I said, seeing the puzzled look on his face. “I don’t think it’s fair that Spencer’s Pokémon have been doing all the work. We should help too—” I stopped. We? What was I going to do? Nothing—that was just it…heck, I wasn’t even the Charmander’s trainer. I shook the thought out of my head and continued. “This thing can teach you to use all of your power to create an attack called ‘Fire Blast.’ Would you be willing to learn it to help us fight them?” I asked.

Firestorm nodded almost immediately. Why was he so willing to fight? I wondered if he realized what kind of danger it would involve. With a sigh, I held the device several inches from his forehead and pushed the biggest button. The disc glowed for a few seconds and began spinning, giving off a sort of wave from what I had once read on TMs. Firestorm froze and looked as though he had been seized by some invisible force. Slowly, the disc slowed and I pulled it away, but he still had a sort of blank stare on his face.

I picked up Chibi again and looked back at the battle, only to see that all this time it had been going very wrong. Spencer had recalled his Arcanine, and things weren’t looking good for the others. I started to pull out Swift’s Poké ball, thinking he could stir up a sandstorm with his wings, but that would make all the Pokémon unable to see, not just the Rockets’.

And then, there was a brilliant flash of flames from behind me. A huge column of fire formed itself into a star shape and soared over us, filling the air around us with flaring embers. As I turned to see Firestorm spouting the intense flames, I wondered if he would always be able to attack like that.

It ended, and he sprang up and ran toward the fray, excited at his new power. Firestorm stopped and glowed, gathering energy again before blowing out a spurt of flame toward the battle. The second attack wasn’t nearly as impressive as the first, though.

“Wha—what happened?” I asked.

Spencer turned from the battle. “What Charmander did before was just the initial reaction to the TM. That wasn’t its real attack power. Teaching a weak Pokémon a powerful move doesn’t really work. Trust me, I’ve tried it. But when it gets stronger, its attack power’ll be something more like this,” he said, turning back to the battle. “Typhlosion, use Fire Blast!!!”

The flaming Pokémon stopped what it had been doing and began to glow with an orange light. Suddenly, from the flare around its neck came an immense wave of flame that swept over the battlefield before becoming a star shape and aiming toward its target—the Raichu.

It tried to dodge the attack, but it was caught by one of the star’s points and thrown into the swirling inferno. But then the assault ended, and it was thrown to the ground, burned, as the flames dissipated into the air. I had been thinking of how incredible the attack had been when I suddenly remembered the Entei… Its power…it had been so much more than even the awesome attack I had just seen. Running with flames erupting from its very skin. Miles of forest burnt in an instant. Just how powerful could Pokémon get?

With the Fire Blast attack, the battle was temporarily turned in our favor. But the odds were soon in the Rockets’ favor again. Now just Typhlosion, Pidgeot, and Firestorm were still able to fight on our side. We needed help. And serious help, for that matter. I considered having Firestorm use Fire Blast into the air again to possibly signal to another trainer. Flying on Pokémon was a very popular way of travel, but then I remembered that Firestorm wouldn’t be able to do the attack with as much power as he had the first time. And if Typhlosion stopped battling to try signaling for help, then we’d lose the most powerful fighter on our side.

“I can’t think of anything more we can do!” Spencer said.

“But, we can’t lose!” I said. “If we do…” I left the sentence unfinished. At least Tyson wasn’t in control of us anymore. I figured that I’d rather be captured by the other Executive. But even still, what would she do to us?

In an instant, a huge high-pitched sound filled the air as an incredible orange and yellow energy beam surged through the air. The beam struck the Rockets’ Pokémon perfectly, striking them with such force as to be only one attack—Hyper Beam. I looked up in the sky where it had come from and saw a tiny dot in the sky getting closer.

“AeeeeeerrRRRRRAAAAAAW!!!!” the dot called out, now close enough that I could tell it was an Aerodactyl. As it rapidly flew nearer, I could see that there was a person riding on its back.

“Hey, Jade!” the trainer yelled.

I jerked in surprise. I couldn’t see who it was clearly yet, but I could never, ever forget that voice.

“What the—Ajia?!” I yelled.

~End Chapter 2~
No, Ajia did not just HAPPEN to be the one trainer to show up through some sort of freak coincidence. There's an important reason why, but none of the characters know that until later.

Edit: And for the sake of at least hearing the name correctly in your head while reading, 'Ajia' is pronounced like a mix between 'ay-shuh' and 'ay-zyuh'. Just think sort of like the continent Asia.

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 28th June 2008 at 6:18 PM.
Reason: Added pronunciation of Ajia, (among various edits)

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Wow! finally a chapter that fits all in one post! It's mainly cause it's lots shorter than the others, only 8 pages. Enjoy (I hope)

~Chapter 3: Ajia’s Return~

I couldn’t believe it, but there was no doubt in my head that the trainer flying toward me was Ajia, despite the fact that I hadn’t seen her ever since I was eleven. Her Aerodactyl was flying toward us at an incredible rate, mostly because it was one of the fastest Pokémon ever discovered. The rush of the wind tossed back her dark brown hair, and she grinned and waved to us from atop the winged dinosaur, her dark brown eyes contrasting with her light skin. She was dressed in light blue jeans and a gray shirt with red sleeves.

The creature she rode atop resembled a large, gray-scaled, pterodactyl-like dinosaur with powerful gripping claws and razor-sharp teeth. Despite its fearsome appearance, it seemed to have a sort of respect for Ajia.

“Who invited you here?!” Tyson shouted.

“Shut up, I’m the one handling this,” the Rocket Executive said, watching, with great interest, Ajia landing next to us.

“You couldn’t have gotten here at a better time,” I said, sounding more than a bit desperate.

“Wow, when I first saw the battle, I didn’t realize I was needed that much,” Ajia said, laughing slightly while sliding off the Pokémon’s back. As she strode toward us, I noticed that she still wasn’t very tall considering that she was fifteen, but at that moment, I wondered at the weird coincidence that she was the one trainer to arrive out of hundreds flying over Kanto.

“You have no idea,” Spencer said. His Typhlosion and Pidgeot were the only Pokémon left standing in the fight against the Rockets, Firestorm having run back to me after realizing that he couldn’t attack with anywhere near as much power as he had the first time. Ajia walked forward with her Aerodactyl. Its previous attack had hit not only the Rocket’s Pokémon, but also struck the ground around them with intense power. The end of the rock barrier was shattered, putting us in plain sight, but also allowing us to see the Rockets. To my dismay, the opposing Pokémon didn’t look to be very damaged from the attack.

“The Hyper Beam didn’t hurt them?” I questioned.

Ajia shook her head. “It was the only long distance move that I could have done at the time, but Aerodactyl’s better at physical attacks…he can’t use things like Hyper Beam as well.”

It was only then that I noticed what had been sitting on Ajia’s shoulder the whole time. Perched there was a small Pokémon with a strong resemblance to Chibi. Its fur was short, fine, and a light yellow color with zigzag patterns of black on its neck and its large diamond-shaped ears. The Pichu turned to see me with faint recognition in its curious blue eyes. I recalled the day Ajia had gotten it and then remembered that the Pichu was female.

Ajia surveyed the force of the Rockets and smiled faintly. I wondered why until she said something that surprised me. “That’s good…this shouldn’t be too hard and they’ve already been weakened, too. Maybe if they were at full power, it would be harder, but this’ll be nothing like some of the battles I’ve had with various other Rockets over the years.”

It sent a chill down my spine. So Ajia had fought Team Rocket as well, and from the vague hint, it didn’t sound as though her battles had been easy. I then realized the obvious: some members of Team Rocket were probably also incredibly skilled trainers that had traveled and battled all over, honing their skills for years, and maybe even participating in Pokémon League competitions. I didn’t ever want to battle against the ones that she had.

Something else was nagging at me as well. Out of all the trainers that could have been alerted by the signal, Ajia was the one trainer to arrive. What were the odds of the person showing up being both someone that I knew and an incredibly skilled trainer?

Pichu jumped off Ajia’s shoulder to stand her ground with Aerodactyl. Ajia pulled out one more Poké Ball and opened it to release an Espeon, a fairly small fox-like Pokémon with short purple fur, large pointed ears, and a long, thin, forked tail. Spencer had just recalled his remaining two Pokémon when Ajia joined the fight and seemed incredibly relieved as the three of them then rushed into the fray.

“Alright you three, Pichu, take out the Magmar; Espeon, keep any of them from dodging attacks; Aerodactyl, fly overhead and use Wing Attack!”

“Why didn’t you send out more Pokémon?” I asked, slightly confused.

“So that they all don’t get hurt at the same time. All of the Rockets’ Pokémon together are more powerful than all of mine, so—hold on, let me finish,” she said, seeing the surprised look on my face when she said that. “If I only send out a few Pokémon at a time, then when one gets hurt bad, I can recall it and send out another. That way they all don’t get hurt at the same time if they used a large attack or something.”

I couldn’t help but stare: what she had said made no sense whatsoever, at least in my mind. How on earth could she think she could win without much trouble, yet at the same time knew that the Rockets’ Pokémon were stronger?!

“Pichu, dodge and use Thunderbolt; Espeon, Confusion!” she called out.

All this time her Pokémon had been fighting the Rockets’. The Pichu darted around the Magmar, lunging out of the way of a burst of orange flame while zapping it with a jolt of lightning. The magma creature hardly looked fazed and was about to inhale for another assault when it was hit by a burst of purple energy from Espeon. Jumping forward, Pichu unleashed a wave of neon yellow electricity, striking the beast and sending it reeling back into one of its teammates.

“Aerodactyl, Supersonic; Pichu and Espeon, get out of the way and attack any who try to escape!” Ajia instructed.

The gray pterodactyl swooped forward and let out a piercing screech at the opposition. I clapped my hands to my ears to block out the horrible sound and looked on as the experimental Rhyhorn charged back, but was held in place by another purple energy blast by Ajia’s psychic fox.

I watched with fascination as her Pokémon continued to evade immensely powerful attacks while pulling off their own to overcome the Rockets’ stronger Pokémon. It then occurred to me that Pichu hadn’t been damaged by her own electric attacks, as was usual with her kind. She was so highly trained that she could completely control her power.

It was then that the Arcanine, tired from fighting the longest, collapsed from its wounds and exhaustion. Well, at least that was one down… But right after the Rocket Executive recalled it, she released it again close to her. I wondered why until I saw her holding various small items. From way over here, I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, but when she was finished, the Arcanine ran back toward us, cleared of all injury and its energy restored. And then suddenly I realized it: she had used a first-aid Hyper Potion and an Elixer. I looked past her and, with a gasp, noticed that a Rocket, most likely Tyson, was holding a huge box likely to be filled with them. We couldn’t win. It was impossible.

“Oh crap, there’s no way we can win this,” Spencer said.

“*I could do it…*” a quiet, muttering voice said. In an instant, I looked down in my arms and saw Chibi watching the battle intently.

“Do what?” I asked.

“*Defeat them,*” he said in an even quieter tone than before.

“But…how? Powerful as you are, you’ve pretty much used up all your energy for now. The paper even said that you couldn’t keep attacking for a long amount of time,” I said.

But rather than answer however, he stood up and called out, “*Pichu, come here!*” Pichu turned to us and ceased her attacks before running over to stare questioningly at Chibi. He gestured to me to put him down and I did. Chibi quickly and quietly went over something with Pichu, and she nodded.

But then, for whatever reason, I realized what he intended to do. Because he was out of power, he wanted Pichu to channel all of her energy into him so he could attack both the Rockets’ Pokémon and the plane at the same time, to end the battle and get rid of any other items in the plane.

“Wait, Chibi!” I said. “That won’t work. If Pichu channels her power to you, it’ll hurt you just like a regular attack would. Pikachus can’t absorb electricity. You’d have to be something like a Manectric or an Ampharos or—”

“*Or a Zapdos?*” he finished. I stared long and hard at him. He had no way of knowing exactly what Zapdos powers he had inherited from the experimentation, but somehow, he had to sense the legendary abilities he had gained, and I trusted his judgment when it came to that.

“Okay…” I said slowly.

Chibi turned back to Pichu and nodded again. Rudy and Spencer had been watching the whole time, and even Ajia had turned from the battle several times to see what was going on. Chibi put his paw against the one of the electrical generators on Pichu’s cheeks. Sparks flew wildly between them and I could see the flow of the electricity from Pichu to Chibi. The electricity circled around him for a few seconds before being absorbed into him. Chibi didn’t have generators on his cheeks; the energy was created from all over his body, from what I had seen from his previous battling, so the electricity went into him all over. I could tell from his face that it actually was hurting him, but he let Pichu continue.

Finally, it was finished. Pichu slumped to the ground, exhausted, and Chibi struggled to stand and recover from the pain before walking forward toward the battle. He pointed first at Ajia’s Pokémon, and then at her.

“*Recall them,*” Chibi said urgently.

“Are you sure?” she asked him. He nodded firmly. Ajia gave me a questioning look and I just shrugged.

Finally, she pulled out her Poké Balls and recalled all of her Pokémon but Pichu, who she walked over and picked up.

I was still slightly lost on Chibi’s plan. He turned to me and said simply, “*This ends now…*”

From all over his body, incredible amounts of power were generated. Lightning surrounded his body and his eyes blazed with hate as he looked on toward the Rockets. He then said such a long string of Pikachu words that I thought I would never be able to translate in my mind, but the words just seemed to grasp me, and though I didn’t really get what he meant, I knew what he was saying to them.

“*I was spawned from your experimentation. You twisted life itself to make it so that my parents would bear a hybrid child. You wondered at my rebellious personality? I’ll tell you why now, though most of you won’t understand. You tied me to the very legends you are trying to defy. My heritage is that of Zapdos as well as Pikachu and through that I have come to know how you intend to accomplish your plans. And now you’ll see the result of your work.*”

Massive streams of electricity formed themselves around his body, twisting and writhing like snakes sprouting from his skin. Every single hair on his body stood on end, giving his fur an even spikier look than before. Through all of this, he concentrated every ounce of power he had gained and fired it in the form of an immense bolt of lightning. It struck the Rockets’ Pokémon and though the Raichu countered with a barrier, it was already almost out of power and collapsed. Both the Rocket executive’s Pokémon and Tyson’s experiments were drained of power and injured severely.

Chibi had fallen to his knees, ache clearly visible in his eyes, but it was shrouded by fierce determination and vengeance. He then used the little amount of power he had left and sent a single lightning bolt flying towards the plane. Seeing what was coming next, the Rockets had recalled their Pokémon and gotten back into the jeeps and had begun to speed rapidly away from the transport jet. Chibi’s power penetrated it and, with a sickening realization, I motioned for everyone to duck back behind what was left of the ridge of rock.

I didn’t see it, but in my head, I knew exactly what was happening. With a roar, a fireball erupted from the overloaded power cells and engulfed the plane. It exploded into a huge column of fire that hurtled flaming debris everywhere. Then, suddenly, an immense roar filled the air, not from the fire, but from some sort of creature. There was a sound of rushing water and when I finally turned from the hiding spot, I saw that the Rockets’ Pokémon had been recalled before the explosion, but the forest had been caught on fire. However, it apparently had been doused by whatever had filled the air with its fierce call.

*****

The Rockets looked on as what was left of the plane smoldered with remnants of extinguished flame. For a while all was silent until the Rocket Executive finally turned to Tyson and said, “The Pikachu was a failed experiment?”

“Err, well…all our testing led us to believe that its enhanced power only tired it out and powerful as it may be, it can only store about as much power as a Pichu. Plus, it was impossible to control…” Tyson explained.

“Well, I guess in that case I think you just handed them a secret weapon…you know, they’re coming up with ways to control even Legendary Pokémon, though I don’t think the boss would’ve wanted to use that technology on a Pikachu…” the Executive said.

“That’s why it was on the jet in the first place: to be sent for testing Legendary control devices on. What should we do?” Tyson asked.

The Executive considered for a while before saying, “Retreat. We’ll fight them again later.”

“But—” Tyson protested. “Most of their Pokémon are down, and I think most of us armed. We could just drive over there and shoot—”

“You do realize that driving over there would be an open invitation for them to ambush us with the Pokémon that haven’t been defeated yet,” she said forcefully. “Now…I said retreat.”

Tyson glanced down at the box he was holding: the box full of healing items he had gathered earlier. He could easily restore their Pokémon. He looked back at the Executive in bewilderment before throwing the box in the back and getting in one of the vehicles. The Rockets obeyed their order and the lead driver led the jeeps along a dirt path to the south.

*****

I looked on as the jeeps pulled away. I then ran over to where Chibi lay unconscious on the ground. I gently picked him up and held him in my arms like before. His breathing was irregular and sparks shot out of his skin at random.

“Just how powerful is that thing?” Rudy asked.

“I don’t know…” I said slowly, looking down at Chibi. “I think that most of the abilities that he’s used today Tyson didn’t know about. Still…I can’t ever let him do that again, cause next time he’ll end up killing himself…”

After I said that, it was quiet for a few seconds before Ajia broke the silence.

“So…I’ve been wondering…when were you finally able to get a license?” Ajia asked.

I sighed. The moment of truth had come. “I didn’t,” I mumbled.

“Huh?” she asked. “But you have a Charmander and also another Pokémon in a Poké ball. I figured the Pikachu wasn’t yours, but…”

“I found the Charmander in the forest and Rudy gave me the Poké Ball to hold Swift, you know, my Pidgey,” I said a little sheepishly, knowing it was illegal for me to be using the Poké Ball without a license.

“What happened? You couldn’t have failed the test and—” she started.

“No, in fact, I was about six questions away from acing it,” I interrupted. “Basically, I never got to receive my license. I got my grade on Friday so today I was supposed to go to a Pokémon League registration type place to get my license, but then all this happened, and…yeah.”

“Well, you know, if you guys wanted I could fly you back to Viridian. It’d have to be one at a time, but—” Ajia said.

“I could fly one of them with my Pidgeot,” Spencer cut in.

“Cool, thanks,” Rudy said.

At first, I was excited, but then I realized something and said nothing. I knew that eventually I would have to tell someone, but that didn’t make me feel any better. It was an agonizing secret that I’d held inside ever since September.

“I’m not going…” I mumbled slowly.

“What?” Ajia and Rudy asked at the same time.

“I said I don’t wanna go back home,” I muttered, turning away.

“…Why not?” Ajia asked.

I sighed. “Well number one is just mainly I’ll be in mega trouble.”

“Trouble? You were kidnapped.”

“No, you don’t get it,” I said. “If I hadn’t gone out wandering in a burnt forest, none of this would have happened. Therefore, it’s my fault. Them being afraid for me was practically the whole reason why I could never become a trainer, despite all those precautions the League took since five years ago. After all this, my parents would probably never let me go outside again.”

“You sound like there’s another reason…” Ajia said.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Even after I get a license, my parents won’t let me go on a Pokémon journey, so that means that…that if I go back I’ll have to go with them when…we…move.”

“What?! You can’t move!” Rudy and Ajia yelled at almost the exact same time.

“We were going to at the end of the school year. My parents were sick of the big city, mainly because of the crime. And this whole situation would make them want to even more,” I explained. “Anyway, what’s it to you guys if I move? You’ll be off on your journeys,” I muttered looking down.

No one spoke for some time until Ajia finally asked, “Where would you have to move?”

“Some stupid little mountain town in the middle of nowhere called New Bark,” I said with spite.

Spencer laughed. “Hey, that’s funny—I lived there before I became a trainer.”

“Oh…er—” I started awkwardly.

“Nah, that’s okay,” he said. Obviously he didn’t have as much pride in his hometown as I did mine.

“Wait,” Ajia said, “couldn’t I just fly you back, let you get your license and then you could leave?”

“No, ‘cause you need to be with a parent for them to give you the license, and you also need either your test, or a note from the Pokémon Handling teacher. That’s what your dad did, right, Rudy?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah…” he said.

Ajia thought for a few seconds. “Dang, I can’t think of any other possibilities. I think you’re stuck, but…no…you can’t go back and you can’t move! I’ll go back home and I can hide you in my closet and then we can play video games all the time!” she yelled randomly.

I laughed, but then thought about the situation seriously. “I don’t want to go back, but…if I don’t, I’m stuck as an illegal trainer with a lizard, a pigeon, and a suicidal, mutated rat!” I ranted. “This is so stupid.”

Rudy laughed after I said that, but then he looked slightly alarmed. “Wait a minute…you’re gonna keep that thing?” he asked, staring at Chibi.

“Yeah, if I can get him to respect me. He could be a big help if he didn’t hate practically everything in sight,” I said, only exaggerating slightly. “I don’t have his Poké Ball, so I’ll just keep him until he wakes up and then explain the situation.”

“So if you’re not going back home, and you’re not allowed to battle in official competitions cause you’re not a licensed trainer, then what are you gonna do? You can’t just stay here,” Ajia said, sounding concerned.

I really hadn’t thought about that. I was determined to find some other option, but I had to face it—there was no other option. “You’re right,” I sighed admittedly. “I’m being a retard, I gotta go home. I can’t battle, so I can’t earn money, and I’d just end up like unsuccessful trainers that either have to go home anyway, or hang out on the streets, or—”

“Or join Team Rocket,” Ajia added with a laugh. “Come on, then,” she said, pulling out a Poké Ball to release Aerodactyl, who stretched its wings and waited expectantly for Ajia to mount it. She climbed up onto its back and pulled me on behind her. Firestorm jumped up behind me and held onto my shirt with his clawed hands. I had almost forgotten he was there.

“Alright then…” Spencer said, releasing his Pidgeot. The large bird of prey still looked worn out, but hadn’t been wounded as badly as his other Pokémon. He mounted it and motioned to Rudy to get on behind him.

I checked my watch and saw that it was now almost five. The sun was just beginning to sink beneath the horizon, casting an orange and scarlet glow across the sky, slowly blending into navy blue. I sighed as Aerodactyl and Pidgeot slowly ascended into the air and imagined what would happen when I got back. Sure, I would have definitely preferred it if the Team Rocket situation had never happened, but it had been my only chance of being on my own as a traveling Pokémon Trainer.

Thinking about Team Rocket made me suddenly remember something else. Like lightning, I snatched my wallet out of my pocket and dug through it to find a small white card. I read it repeatedly with desperation, hope slowly spreading though me as I made my decision.

“Ajia, turn back!” I said suddenly.

“Er…why?” she asked.

“I can’t really explain it completely, but I need to get to Vermilion to learn more about the S.S. Anne’s next journey,” I explained.

“Well, where’s it going? I could take you straight there,” Ajia offered.

“Err, well…I don’t really know,” I admitted.

“What?” Ajia asked, now thoroughly lost.

“Okay, okay, here,” I said, handing Ajia the card the guy with the Charizard had given me. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but it’ll be fine if you know.”

Ajia quickly read the card and concentrated hard on it, as though trying to figure something out. Finally, she said, “It sounds pretty suspicious if you ask me. I mean, not telling where the ship’s going or what you’ll be doing.”

“That’s just cause the guy who gave it to me didn’t want Team Rocket to find out anything, just in case they found one of the cards. He was about your age,” I added.

“Okay…” Ajia said, still uncertain. She leaned forward and instructed her Aerodactyl to turn south. There was a slight whoosh of wind as it changed our course.

“Hey, where’re you going?” Rudy called out to us from atop Spencer’s Pidgeot.

“Vermilion,” Ajia said simply, grinning at Rudy’s puzzled look.

“Rudy, when you get back home, tell my parents what happened and that I’m okay!” I yelled back to him.

“But what’s going on?!” he shouted.

“I was chosen to do something, okay?” I said, deciding not to say anything more on the subject. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t, seeing as Aerodactyl was zooming away from Spencer, Rudy, and Pidgeot at an amazing rate, and we were now out of earshot. The ground whizzed by below us, and the air whipped at our faces. Finally, I caught a glimpse of the ocean in the distance as Aerodactyl slowly began to descend. It finally swooped low and landed just on the edge of Vermilion.

“Well, good luck,” Ajia said. “Are you just gonna stay at a Pokémon Center for a month?”

“Yeah, probably,” I said, knowing that it was cheap to stay in the rooms at Pokémon Centers, hospitals for Pokémon. Still holding onto Chibi’s limp form, I dismounted Aerodactyl and watched it push off the ground to soar low above my head.

“Here,” Ajia said, rummaging in her backpack for a pencil and a piece of paper. She quickly scribbled something down and tossed it to me along with an unused Poké Ball. “For your Charmander. And just in case something else happens, that’s my PokéGear number.” I caught the ball, grabbed the small paper as it drifted down, and then waved to her. “I’ll see you later, Jade!” Ajia called out before Aerodactyl streaked off into the distance.

After the two of them had gone, I glanced back down at the Charmander at my heels, a bit perplexed at the fact that he had followed me all the way here.

“So…does this mean you’re staying with me?” I asked him.

Firestorm looked up at me timidly, as though unsure of how to respond. “*I…well, you’re my trainer now, right?*”

I raised an eyebrow. “I guess…well, I never really captured you, but…” I trailed off awkwardly. Did wild Pokémon normally act like this? I had assumed that they’d usually resist going with a human as much as possible. Then again…if he did have a family and a home in that forest, it was likely all gone…there wasn’t much he could go back to.

“If you’re sure it’s what you want, then fine, you can come with me,” I said, forcing a smile afterwards. Even though it probably wasn’t right to think of it in this light, I couldn’t deny that having a Charmander would be cool.

I held up the Poké Ball that Ajia had given me and drew him into it with a flash of red. Almost immediately, the button on it turned white to show that Firestorm was contained in it and was now the only Pokémon that could be recalled into the ball.

I walked on slowly through the outskirts of Vermilion, searching for the Pokémon Center, but keeping my eyes mainly on the vast expanse of sea that surrounded two sides of the city. I sighed as I slowly accepted what I had gotten myself into. Tomorrow was my fourteenth birthday...and it would be a day of new beginnings.

~End Chapter 3~
Well, there's chapt. 3. Chapter 4 probably won't take long, since it's short, too. Please reply, though I doubt anyone will, cause EVERY TIME I post a fic, only one person ever replies, so I'm used to it. Not that it matters, I'll still keep posting even if no one does, but I'd like to know what I need to improve on.

Backstory alert: At this point, knowing some of Chibi’s past may prove useful. It is not necessary to understanding this fic, but It may help, and I hope you find the following one-shot enjoyable: Remnants

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Well written, it had great description and a nice tone. The only thing I disagree with in your story is that you had an Entei be taken down with so few pokemon, but its your story. I'll be waiting for the next chapter.

I figured someone would ask about that. The Entei part is revealed in a bit more detail around chapter...16-ish...That's the first time I get into the Johto side of Team Rocket and there's a lot more to the Entei capture that what's been told so far. Thanks for the replies, Pokemaniac and[DeNi]zen. I should have the next chapter up in a little more than a week.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Dang, that sucks. This is a great fic to. Oh well. BTW, how do you know, in advance, what will be in each chapter? For instance,

The Entei part is revealed in a bit more detail around chapter...16-ish...That's the first time I get into the Johto side of Team Rocket and there's a lot more to the Entei capture that what's been told so far.

Okay, in a few more days I'll have chapter 4 up. Fortunatly, though I had to replace my computer, nothing was lost... Oh, and Groudiken, I've outlined every single chapter in my whole entire fic. If you were to ask me what happens in chapter, say....47, I could give you a whole long summary. That's why I'm immune to writer's block!! Unfortunatlely, I do get what I call Writer's procrastination, lol

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

If you've reached this far, the exposition is over. I'll take a moment to expand on something which you may have already noticed.

LC is a cliche-breaker. I may have coined the term, but the concept itself is not unheard of. My goal is to specifically utilize cliches in my plot rather than shying away from them, in the hopes of using them "the right way"...as legitimate as any other concept. Some of the more major ones are:

Team Rocket: Warped through individual characters, mutifaceted underground conflicts, and expansion of backstory, purpose, and motive. Ie, if you think Team Rocket is evil, then I'm going to shove a pie in your face.The "original trainer": Lack of journey, badge hunting or any related items. Alright, this one's pretty common... ><The "Chosen One": Given reason, and stripped free of any predestination/ancient significance/or supreme power to be placed on any one character. Further twisting through use of Legendaries to elaborate on themes. Is it right or wrong to capture them? It's not too early in the fic to wonder--keep that in mind around the later chapters.Hybrids/experiments: Eh...I can't think of any "sophisticated" explanation...just wait and see.

~Chapter 4: Voyage to Midnight Island~

Clothes—of all the things to spend birthday money on… But if I was gonna wait around in Vermilion for nearly a month until the S.S. Anne left for…for wherever it was going, I’d need a few more outfits. I had chosen a few cool shirts and some pants that had Poké Ball holders on them but then realized that I’d need socks and that sort of stuff. I wished that I had somehow known to grab some spare clothes when I had left home. Still, I’d had no idea that any of this would happen; I had just planned on riding around town a little while Rudy finished his chores.

I paid for the clothes and stuffed the store bag in my backpack. Outside, I sauntered along the bay toward the Pokémon Center while looking out over the horizon, awed by the endless stretch of sea that surrounded two sides of Vermilion. The cool, salty ocean breeze filled the atmosphere, and I shivered a little with the chill in the air. Though I commonly wore T-shirts all winter, I still felt cold and wanted to get inside.

I entered the Pokémon Center and strode through the lobby and into the back area toward my room. I was allowed to stay in a room, despite the fact that I wasn’t a trainer, but though I wanted to have my Pokémon healed, I knew that they would check for ID when I paid. I would definitely be in trouble if they found out that I was using Poké Balls without a license. In the end, I just decided that it was pointless, as Chibi was recharged by now, and neither he nor Firestorm had sustained many physical injuries from the battle.

After unlocking the door and entering the room, I placed the bags on the table and was soon greeted by Firestorm.

“*What’s that?*” he asked, sniffing the bag.

“I already told you guys that I needed to buy clothes,” I replied, flopping onto the bed. With a glance around the room I saw Swift perched on a chair and Chibi sitting in the windowsill.

Firestorm and Swift usually stayed out of their Poké Balls and in our Pokémon Center room, only occasionally coming with me when I had to go shopping. I seriously didn’t blame them; it was boring and they would have had to wait outside the store anyway. As for Chibi—I had no way of restraining him, and he still hadn’t particularly agreed or disagreed to my keeping him. He didn’t really talk much, or even look at any of us for that matter. I rarely let him leave the Center with me.

After some time I spoke up, “Hey Firestorm, I wanna practice some more.”

“*Again?*” he groaned. “*Come on—if you can understand me well enough as it is, then why do we have to do this every day?*” The Charmander waddled over and sat across from me.

“I only got through half a semester of the AP Pokéspeech course, and up until then I was completely horrible at it,” I explained. “Besides, they always said that the best way to get fluent was to practice all the time.”

“*Couldn’t you talk with Swift?*” he asked.

Rubbing the back of my head, I answered, “Um, not really…” Swift had never exactly been one to talk very much. Upon noticing that our conversation involved him, the Pidgey turned away sheepishly.

“Alright—same as always...I need to make sure I can understand you even if you say something really fast and illogical,” I instructed.

He rolled his eyes at first, but then spat out a rapid string of words in Pokéspeech: “Charman’der char’ chamanchr mander’char.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You said, ‘you are…bad at Pokéspeech’? I thought I said illogical.”

“*That was,*” he said promptly with a laugh.

I shook my head, but couldn’t help laughing just the same.

“*Why don’t you try talking in Pokéspeech?*” Firestorm asked me.

With a frown, I said, “That won’t work. I mean, I could try, but there’s no way it would come out right. It’s just like how Pokémon can’t speak human. You can’t make the right sounds for human speech, and while I could get the syllables right for Pokéspeech, there’s no way I could get the tones and enunciations down. But it doesn’t really matter—most Pokémon can understand humans anyway.”

Firestorm nodded, taking that opportunity to jump off the bed and end the practice. I watched him grab a plastic bag and rummage for a box of cookies. Smiling, I mentally noted that I would need to buy some Pokémon food or else wind up with very malnourished Pokémon.

The wind struck the window as I looked out towards the overcast gray sky. Three more weeks in Vermilion…

I sighed and flipped slowly through the remaining money in my wallet. Between the clothes, food, and staying in the room the past few weeks, I had spent almost all of my cash, despite the fact that staying at a Pokémon Center was dirt-cheap. Every now and then, I pulled out the card I had been given and read it again. It said meet in Vermilion prior to December 7 for further instruction, but I hadn’t seen the guy with Charizard at all and the seventh was coming up in two days. For a while, I had wondered how I was even gonna afford the ticket to board the S.S. Anne.

I stood up from the bed and replaced my wallet in my pocket before departing the Center again. I walked outside with Swift perched atop my shoulder and Firestorm at my heels and stared at the large array of ships in the harbor. A few days earlier, the S.S. Anne had arrived, and the crew had begun preparing for the voyage. The ship was huge and almost all white except for the top of it and the railing along the deck, which were shiny silver and black along the smokestacks; it was the typical cruise ship design. I was gazing up at the ship when I heard a rushing of air behind me.

“There you are, I knew I was forgetting someone,” someone said. The voice was vaguely familiar, and I turned to see the guy I had met in the forest flying down on his Charizard.

“Oh, hey,” I said.

The Charizard landed, and the tall, teenaged trainer climbed off the orange dragon’s back. “Since you’re here, I’m assuming you want to join the rebellion.” I nodded and he continued. “Good, cause you’re one of the only ones left that I haven’t talked to out of the people I gave cards to. First of all, I wanna make sure you’re really willing to do this. I don’t want anyone joining and then deciding to quit after they realize that there’s danger involved.”

I shrugged. “Yeah I’m serious about it, but only mainly cause I got nothing better to do.” I then added, “I also have a bit of a score to settle with Team Rocket.”

“Okay,” he said, pulling a small, stiff piece of paper out of his wallet and handing it to me. I took it and skimmed what it said quickly. Gasping slightly, I said, “This is a S.S. Anne ticket.”

“Well how else would you be allowed on the ship?” he asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, but…if you’re giving tickets to everyone whose joining the rebellion, then—” I started before he cut me off.

“I’ve got a ton of money to spare. I told the crew of the ship that I wanted tickets for the Pokémon Trainer’s party on board and then bought two hundred or so of ‘em. I only have a few left over.”

I stared. “Holy crap, you must be rich.”

He shrugged and said, “I won a lot of prize money in Pokémon League competitions. I actually placed second in the World Championships last year. Still, I spent a lot on the tickets and renting the stadium we’re gonna use as headquarters.”

“Which is where…?” I asked, for I had been wondering it for a long time.

“Oh, Midnight Island,” he said, as though that answered my question. I had no idea where that was, but didn’t decide to ask him. There was one other thing I had been wondering at, though.

“Wait, one thing I’d like to ask…you said you were recruiting beginning trainers. Why? Why not more experienced ones that would have a better chance when fighting Team Rocket?” I said, thinking back to the incredible way Ajia had battled.

“Beginning trainers are able to change their strategy easier than trainers who’ve been battling the same way for years. You need to be able to adapt to whatever opponent you face and I also figure I could help train beginning trainers on how to fight Team Rocket a bit more easily. By the way, did you get any more Pokémon?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, I have a Pikachu back at the Pokémon Center,” I said, leaving out the fact that Chibi was only about eighty percent Pikachu, and twenty percent Zapdos.

He nodded. “Your Charmander might be a pretty good fighter if you can evolve it. Same with the Pidgey,” he added. He then walked over and got back on his Charizard’s back once more. “Guess I’ll be seeing ya with the others at Midnight Island.”

“Yeah, later,” I said, watching him fly off on his flame dragon. Right then, something occurred to me. “Hey! What’s your name?”

“Stalker,” he replied before soaring out of sight. I then returned to the Pokémon Center feeling a bit more anticipation for the trip than before.

“Ticket?” the man at the top of the ramp leading onto the ship asked. I retrieved the ticket from my pocket and handed it to him. He looked it over before placing it through a machine, handing me a card key of some sort and saying, “First and last name?”

“Jade Arenesa,” I answered.

He entered it in on a computer and then said, “Alright, you’re clear, welcome to the S.S. Anne.”

I walked onto the deck of the S.S. Anne and into the bustling crowd of trainers. Many of those who were invited to Midnight Island had their Pokémon out with them for the Pokémon Trainer’s party. Chibi, who had been walking alongside me the whole time, glared into the crowd disdainfully. I wasn’t so sure about having him unrestrained around everyone, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“Um…Chibi, can I talk to you alone?” I asked, wanting to discuss something with him before the party.

For a while, he didn’t respond. I stared at him expectantly; finally, he nodded. I glanced around, found some stairs leading down to the cargo area, and descended into the immense space filled with crates and boxes of tools and various ship parts. Chibi followed me.

“Alright, look,” I said flatly. “We need to settle this. I’m sorry, but I still don’t entirely trust you. That whole time in Vermilion, I wanted to let you out of the Center more, but I didn’t want you to, well…cause havoc or anything. I want you to just…I don’t know…be normal?”

Normal? It wasn’t really the word I was going for, but Chibi got what I was trying to say. I was asking him to act more like a Pikachu. He turned and said simply, “*I’ll be myself,*” I wasn’t sure whether it was progress or not, especially since I knew he had more to say. I was about to ask him what, but he cut me off.

His ranting in Pikachu was quiet as to not alert those upstairs, but filled with as much rage and infuriation as the time he attacked the Rockets and their ship. “*I’m sick of it! Stop treating me like some demented raging animal or something! It seems like you just think that if you release me around people, that I’ll go on a killing rampage! Would you treat any of your human friends, even one with, like, I don’t know, an anger problem or something like this?!*”

The question penetrated me, but Chibi didn’t give me time to think about it. “*You act like you’re in control of me. Yeah, you’re the human, I’m the Pokémon, but if you really want us to get along, then treat me like a equal, not a dangerous pet. And as for battling…*” Here he paused before continuing. “*I’m not like other Pokémon…I don’t need a trainer in order to battle successfully, but I’ll listen to you if you want me to during a battle. Just so long as you don’t pull that whole, ‘I’m the trainer so you have to obey me’ thing.*”

He didn’t need a trainer? Was he really that self-centered, or was it true? I stared long and hard at him, going over what he had said in my mind. Finally, I nodded slowly before holding out my hand. He studied my expression for some time, apparently thinking hard before finally shaking my hand. Without saying a word, we then began to ascend the metal stairs back up to the trainer’s party.

Suddenly, Chibi stopped and twitched his ears. He turned back toward the crates, glaring apprehensively.

“What?” I asked, slightly lost.

“*Someone’s back there…*” he whispered, running back and taking small, silent steps. I followed extremely slowly and noiselessly after him, wondering what he had heard that had alarmed him. Finally, he stopped and slowly peeked around the corner of a crate, pulling himself back again almost immediately. “*Listen,*” he muttered. I strained my ears to hear what only he could hear, apparently. Right then, however, whoever it was started talking and I realized that more than one person was there.

“D’you think the kid and the Pikachu are gone?” the voice whispered.

“Most likely. I heard footsteps going up the stairs,” the second said. “Good thing, too. She could’ve been one of the ones on this ship that’re gonna join that rebel team.”

My heart skipped a beat when he said that. They had to be on Team Rocket, but how could they have known about the rebellion already? I mean, it hadn’t even started yet! What the first Rocket said next, though, made me feel better.

“How do we even know that this thing is even really gonna exist? We’re just going by a bunch of weird rumors going around with the new Pokémon Trainers.”

“Not exactly. A few of the kids that got cards were actually among our new recruits. We know the rebellion’s real,” the first Rocket explained. “Unfortunately, though they waited in Vermilion, they never got a ticket. I guess whoever’s behind all this made sure no Rockets could get within his or her ranks. I s’pose that’s the only reason we’re on this mission.”

“Who knows?” the other said, with a tone of finality, as though he didn’t want to talk anymore with an underling who was uninformed of the mission. I, however, was thoroughly confused. Cinnabar Island? The ship was going to Midnight Island. The Rockets obviously had their facts wrong, which was a good thing for Stalker. Otherwise, he’d never even get a chance to start the Team Rocket rebellion.

I headed back toward the stairs and motioned for Chibi to follow. We walked up the stairs, making sure not to create any noise, and returned to the main area of the ship.

I finally found a map framed on one of the elaborately decorated walls and stared at it before finally figuring out that Midnight Island was just off the eastern coast of Kanto near a tiny town called Lavender. Cinnabar, on the other hand, was quite some distance from Kanto’s southwestern tip. Why did the Rockets think we were going there? I then wondered why Stalker hadn’t just bought us tickets for some ferry in Lavender Town. It had to be a lot cheaper.

Later that night, I lay in bed inside the room that corresponded with the card key I had been given. The past few hours had been very boring, seeing as I couldn’t participate in many of the trainers’ activities like special battles, contests, and such, and the Team Rocket matter had been constantly lingering in my head.

Whatever the Rockets were going to do, I doubted they would do it while everyone was still at the party, but I didn’t have any idea what their plans were.

Firestorm was on the floor, his tail resting on some non-flammable cloth, Swift was perched on a chair, his head buried in the down feathers on the back of his neck, and Chibi had snuggled down into the sheets. Finally, I just set my watch to go off in the middle of the night and eventually drifted off to sleep.

A tiny beeping noise awakened me at one in the morning. Groaning to myself, I reached to turn it off and slowly lumbered out of bed. I pulled on some shoes and regular clothes and walked toward the door.

“Char…?” Firestorm sleepily said.

I turned back to see him opening his eyes and lifting himself up to look at me. I replied, “I’m goin’ out to figure out something. If any of you want, you can come.”

“*I’m pretty tired, so I guess I’ll pass, but I’ll ask Swift and Chibi,*” he said, walking to the front of the bed and pulling up the covers, revealing Chibi curled up in a ball with the spikes of his fur sticking out.

“*Hey…*” Chibi mumbled.

“*Just wanted to tell you…Jade’s leaving to go figure out…uh, something,*” he said, looking back at me questioningly. Chibi raised an eyebrow at me and I whispered, “Team Rocket.”

His expression hardened. The Pikachu nodded in realization before jumping off the bed and walking over to me.

I noticed Swift hadn’t stirred yet, but I decided not to wake him. I turned to Chibi. “Guess it’s just you and me,” I said as we walked out in the darkened hallway.

Very few people were still awake and most of the lights had been dimmed. We entered the main room to find it completely dark. All of the lights had been turned out, though in several other rooms that came out from the central area, light could be seen through the doors. I walked with Chibi down the side passage and opened the door to the cargo bay. We silently tiptoed down the metal stairway and into complete darkness. I felt my foot collide with something, and I quickly struggled to prevent myself from tripping over a crate of supplies at the end of the stairs.

“It’s too dark to see. Chibi, could you make it just a little bit brighter?” I asked. He nodded and strings of electricity formed around his body as he began to glow with a dim yellow light. I don’t know why he took the precaution, though. It didn’t matter if it was a dim light or if it lit up the whole room, Team Rocket would see us if they were here.

Apparently they weren’t here, because they sure weren’t where they had been previously. We ran back up the stairs and looked around. Any paths leading out of the main room either had one of the crewmembers in it or led to the passengers’ rooms. Wherever the Rockets were planning, they obviously had already started it in a remote part of the ship. I looked back at the passage to the cargo bay, which continued further into the shadows.

“Of course…” I muttered to myself. “Come on Chibi,” I said as we slowly walked down the hallway and down another flight of stairs that descended into seemingly infinite blackness. Chibi had stopped glowing a few seconds earlier, for he knew it was crucial for us to not be seen. At the bottom was a second corridor along which we continued for nearly a minute. I could hear distant voices and footsteps. Chibi had raced ahead noiselessly to see if it was just crew members or the Rockets. The latter was more likely, for I seriously doubted that the crew would be down here with it so dark.

I knew I was nearing the end of the passage when Chibi ran back to me.

“*It’s them—they’re a little ways ahead,*” he warned.

I could see the glow of several flashlights piercing the blackness as we neared the Rockets. They were in the engine room, and fortunately, it didn’t look like they had gotten there more than ten minutes ago. I knelt and walked with my back along the wall. The second I made it to the large chamber, I ducked back behind some storage crates and listened, though I couldn’t pick out most of what they were saying.

“Chibi,” I whispered. He turned and ran over to me. “Hey, can you hear what they’re saying?”

“*Yeah, sure, but unfortunately it sounds like they’ve already been all over the ship,*” he said, his voice lowered.

“Doing what?!” I asked frantically.

“*Hold on,*” he muttered, twitching his ears and making occasional glances around the side of the boxes. After a few seconds he turned back to me and said, “*Not good…they’ve got explosives set up all over the ship. They’re rigged to go off when activated by some remote thing that the leader’s got. I guess they’re gonna get off this thing and then blow it up.*”

“We gotta stop them and getting the controls is our best bet,” I said.

“*Couldn’t I just knock all of ‘em out?*” he asked.

“We can’t risk it. If one of them is holding on to it, it’d get short-circuited, and that could activate the explosives.”

“*Fine then, I’ve got an idea,*” he said.

“What can I do?” I asked eagerly.

“*You can be there to catch the remote when I throw it to you after getting it away from them,*” he said.

“Hey,” I said and was about to protest but he had already jumped out from behind our hiding place.

He turned back one last time, gave me a skeptical look, and said rather loudly and noticeably, “*Come on, fighting Rockets is a Pokémon’s job. What else could you do?*” Of course, the Rockets probably couldn’t understand him, but they sure had heard him.

“A Pikachu?” one of them asked. Another one turned his flashlight on Chibi, who stood completely still, eyeing them. The Rocket studied Chibi for several seconds before finally recognition hit him.

“Of course…” he muttered in realization, before yelling to the others, “It’s the escaped experimental Pikachu! All who have Pokémon release them, now!” Instantly, there was a huge white flash that disappeared just as soon as the Rockets’ Pokémon materialized from within the Poké Balls. The darkness hid them the second they emerged, and the only things I could see were where the flashlights were pointed. Chibi jumped out of the beam of light and slipped behind the opposing Pokémon. The Rockets aimed the flashlights in that direction, but he was already gone. It had just begun to dawn on the lead Rocket that they were at a serious disadvantage.

“Manectric, use Flash!” a female Rocket commanded. Right after she said that, there was a crack of static electricity as a bright glow of energy was generated from a large blue and yellow dog Pokémon with a long mane on its head that stored power. The engine room was completely illuminated, but Chibi was nowhere to be seen. The Rockets switched off their flashlights and their Pokémon looked around in confusion. I noticed Chibi long before they did. He had somehow managed to use his power to cling to the metal roof. He struggled to control the electricity so it would make no noise as he walked along the ceiling. He stopped to position himself and I wondered why until I saw that he was above the Rocket holding the controls for the explosives.

“*Look!*” the Manectric called out, generating a bright yellow bolt of lightning and firing it upward at Chibi. He lunged out of the way and landed in the middle of the Rockets.

It was complete pandemonium. Chibi rushed away from the Rockets, immediately jumping to avoid two of the Rockets’ Pokémon and launching a neon blast of Thunderbolt at the green thunder dog. I understood his plan—take out the Manectric to make it dark and also get rid of the one Pokémon there that could sense his electricity, being an Electric Pokémon itself. Unfortunately the blue dog managed to elude his assault and ducked back behind the other Pokémon. Chibi attacked the closest Pokémon to him but was unable to dodge a stream of blazing flame that struck him along the back. He fell in mid-jump and slid along the floor into the wall, his back burned, and his fur singed.

“That’s it, I don’t care what Chibi says, he needs help,” I muttered to myself, but then I suddenly realized the Firestorm and Swift were asleep back in my room. Chibi had struggled to stand just as all of the Rockets’ Pokémon fired their attacks at him. He then pulled off a series of moves that I seriously wish I could have seen in slow motion.

Just when all of the attacks were inches away from him, he channeled all of his energy into generating an electric force field, simultaneously absorbing the Manectric’s power and blocking the other attacks. He then raced across the floor, jumped up above the Rockets, and swung his tail forward, knocking the control out of the lead Rocket’s hand. Since he was behind several of the Rockets, he didn’t have to worry about being attacked by their Pokémon as he grabbed the remote in his mouth and tossed it behind the crates.

“*I’ll stall ‘em, get outta here, now!*” Chibi shouted.

As fast as I possibly could, I snatched the remote-like device up off the floor and sprinted out into the passage the led back to the main area of the ship without looking back. I could hear blasts of electricity from behind me—probably Chibi keeping the Rockets from pursuing me.

I studied the remote and saw that it had a screen at the top and several buttons underneath. It was a lot more complex than I had figured, so I pushed a small button directly under the center of the screen. It lit up instantly with a menu screen that said Location, Timed Activation, and Settings. I selected Location and the screen cleared before showing around twenty small red dots and a larger, blinking blue one.

“Of course…” I said in realization. “This thing shows where all of the bombs are…” The blue dot had to be where the remote was in relation to all of the explosives and it was nearing one of the red dots on the screen. Using the minimal light given off on the screen, I scanned the walls for anything out of the ordinary and, sure enough, found a small, circular device stuck to the wall. I tugged at it with my fingertips and found that it wasn’t hard to detach it before heading back to the main room and searching for all of the bombs.

For nearly half an hour I ran all over the S.S. Anne, realizing exactly just how immense it was in the process. Every so often, I would go out on the deck and throw all of the bombs I had collected so far off the ship and into the sea, where they sank to the ocean floor. I couldn’t help wondering, however: where was Chibi? Could he possibly have been fighting this whole time?

I had just thrown the last three overboard when I started running back to the rooms. I quickly pulled out my ticket and swiped it along the card scanner on my door, opening it.

“Firestorm, Swift, wake up,” I said almost immediately while flipping the light switch on. The noise and sudden brightness made both of them awaken instantly. Firestorm stood and said, “*What’s going on?*”

“Team Rocket was planning to kill everyone, and Chibi seriously needs our help,” I said, grabbing my Poké Balls and wallet and sticking them in my pockets. Swift flew over to my shoulder as Firestorm jumped off the bed, ready to go. I was about to run back out the door, but then I grabbed my backpack, just in case I didn’t get a chance to get back to the room. We raced down the hallway and, once again, into the central area of the ship.

“Chibi!” I yelled as loud as I possibly could, not caring if I woke someone up. “If you can hear me, get to the main area, now!” I knew Pikachu had incredibly acute hearing, but what if he was too injured to make it here? I was running back toward the passage to the engine room when I heard several footsteps running toward me.

“Crap!” I said, turning around as fast as I possibly could and running the opposite direction.

“Not so fast!” the lead Rocket yelled. Slowly I turned to see all of them standing behind me with Chibi limp in the lead Rocket’s arms and all of the Rockets’ Pokémon out in front.

Chibi managed to look up at me and said, “*Used all my energy…hope you got another plan ‘cause they quit usin’ the Manectric against me a long time ago and I’m spent…*” They had to have realized that Chibi could absorb electrical attacks and had recalled his only remaining source of power.

“Shut it, you!” the Rocket yelled at Chibi before turning to me. “I thank you for returning Experimental Pokémon Number Nine back to us. Now that we know that it was successful after all, it could be a big help in our current experimentation. That said, you have something else that’s ours.”

“No way you’re getting this back!” I yelled, clutching the remote.

“*Swift and I can battle ‘em!*” Firestorm said fiercely.

“What, no way! You guys can’t take down all of their Pokémon!” I exclaimed.

“*Chibi may be the strongest of us, but that doesn’t mean we cannot fight,*” Swift said. I turned in surprise, not really familiar with the voice because he didn’t usually talk. I nodded and said, “Okay…”

“If you’re through talking with your Pokémon, then let’s get down to business…Ninetales, attack!” the lead Rocket yelled. The large, cream-colored fire fox that had managed to injure Chibi rushed forward, its nine graceful tails swirling dramatically as it leaped into the fray.

“Niiiiiine!” Ninetales yelled as a sort of battle cry before unleashing a wave of flame upon Firestorm. Swift took flight and entered the fray while Firestorm lunged to the side, barely evading the attack. While Ninetales was dealing with Firestorm, Swift had swooped downward at it, his wings glowing in a Wing Attack. The fire fox turned aside and smacked Swift right along the back with its slender paw. Swift let out a cry as he went flying into the wall with three wide lines of blood staining his feathers.

“I knew this wasn’t a good idea,” I said to myself, realizing immediately that the Ninetales was clearly stronger than the other Pokémon. I quickly pulled out Swift’s Poké Ball and recalled him. “Firestorm, you sure you don’t wanna bail?”

Firestorm shook his head and turned back to Ninetales resolutely.

“Enough of this, Ninetales, Fire Spin!!!” the lead Rocket shouted.

I gasped. Fire Spin wasn’t exactly the most powerful flame technique around, but it was nearly impossible to avoid. It completely surrounded an opponent in a column of fire, leaving them trapped within a swirling inferno.

“No, Firestorm!” I yelled, but it was too late. He had been caught in the attack and thrown into the blaze. I pulled out his Poké Ball to recall him, but the flame blocked the beam of red light that shot out of the center of the ball to draw him into it. I could see his silhouette in the assault, curled into a ball and very nearly collapsed. Suddenly the fire pillar expanded around the middle and the rush of flame burst into hundreds of embers that dissipated into the air. I looked closer and saw Firestorm engulfed in a sphere of flame that burned brightly around his body.

“What the—?!” the Rocket yelled.

“…Rage…” I said slowly. It was an ability that could only be used when a Pokémon was under great stress, anger, or pain and tremendously heightened a Pokémon’s power. From within the fire, an incredible white light came forth and completely illuminated the immense room. The shielding flame around Firestorm ceased and his body shined with the glow as, before our eyes, he grew over two feet in size and completely changed in shape.

His scales changed to a reddish color, the burns and blisters from the previous attack faded, and his limbs grew more defined from his body. Elongated and thickened, his arms ended in heavy blade claws, and his muscular tail was covered in flame on the end. Finally, a single horn sprouted from the back of the skull and his face stretched into more of a dragonish snout.

“He’s…evolved into a Charmeleon…” I whispered in awe. Pokémon evolution was usually triggered by age, as it was a Pokémon’s only way of maturing, although battle experience had a lot to do with it. Firestorm turned back to me, his eyes a different shape with much larger whites surrounding the blue irises. He was brimming with pride and confidence as he turned back and resumed the battle once more.

The Ninetales was slightly stunned from having its attack broken up like that and its trainer had been in wonder at the sudden burst of power Firestorm had gained, but the Rage had worn off by now and Ninetales knew it and was ready to fight. It crouched defensively and snarled.

“I’m sick of playing around,” the Rocket said, recalling his Ninetales. “Pokémon Training never was my thing and wasn’t how I earned my position with Team Rocket. Besides, it’s foolish for Rockets to rely only on their Pokémon to get their way.” Here he paused and reached into his pocket to pull out a small metal item, hidden by the darkness, but glinting with a silver sheen as it caught the limited light of the moon shining through the windows. I hesitated and was lost for words as he pointed the gun right at me. “Don’t even think of running and hand over the remote.”

I stared mindlessly at the weapon, my body completely numb as I felt a surge of terror spread like ice in my veins. I was about to manage some sort of response, but then I had a sudden thought that even if I gave him the remote, he would probably shoot me anyway. But even still…if I did give it to him, both me and everyone else on the ship was dead. Then I noticed Chibi motioning to me. He kept shaking his head and winking at me. I mouthed the words, “You sure?” and he nodded. And then I got it: he had most definitely charged up a limited amount of power in the past few minutes.

“Well, what’s it gonna be?” he said. “You got five seconds.”

“*Now!!!*” Chibi yelled, channeling all of his power into the Rocket, who slumped to the floor under the attack. Just as I took off running with Firestorm, Chibi wrenched himself free and followed us.

“Someone tranquilize the damn thing already!” the lead Rocket yelled furiously. Several seconds later I heard the sound of something small and fast whizzing through the air behind me.

“Pika!” Chibi gasped, dropping to the ground. I turned and saw a dart sticking out of his left shoulder. I was about to run over to pick him up, but he yelled, “*Get outta here! They need me brought back alive, but they’ll kill you in a second if you wait around here, now go!!!*”

It seemed like my legs were on autopilot as I obeyed him and ran off, making as many turns around corners as I could. I had to get away, but to leave him back there like that…? Repeatedly, I glanced over my shoulder, both to see whether I was being pursued, and in wonder of whether Chibi was all right.

*****

The Rocket that had shot Chibi with the tranquilizer gun ran over and picked him up. He tucked the mutant rodent under his arm as he turned back to his leader, who was struggling to stand after being under the effects of the electricity.

“What should we do about the girl?” he asked. The lead Rocket was about to answer, but one of the others interrupted.

“Let me handle this,” she said, releasing her Manectric. “It’ll be much faster.”

Sure of what to do, the Manectric nodded, raced off into the darkness, and was gone for little more than a minute. The Rockets waited in silence until it ran back, out of breath with strings of electricity leaping from its fur.

“Did everything go accordingly?” its trainer asked. The Manectric nodded. “Was the girl knocked out at least?” At this, the Manectric shook its head. The Rocket cursed and said, “But you’re sure you managed to short-circuit the remote?” The Manectric nodded its head vigorously yet again.

“That’ll do then,” the lead Rocket said as all of the Rockets recalled their Pokémon. He turned to the others and said. “We’re done here. Now let’s go.”

They all pushed a button on their backpacks, which made two small jets burst out of the sides and activate. Energy blasted of the jetpacks in an invisible force as the Rockets lifted off the deck and soared away.

*****

Keep going, they're all in two pieces up until chapter 7. >>

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 2nd July 2008 at 12:25 AM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

I slowly stood to my feet after the Manectric ran back to the Rockets. It had zoomed toward me using its electricity to run at super speed before firing a Thundershock attack at me and leaving before Firestorm even had a chance to attack. As the weakest of all electric techniques, it hadn’t hurt immensely—sort of like an extremely bad static electricity shock, only all over my body. The remote that was still in my left hand was sparking, though, and the screen was jumbled. With a sinking feeling, I read the words that had appeared on it: Automatic Timed Detonation Activated.

“What?! But…we got rid of all the explosives!” I yelled, but then I realized the obvious: the Rockets had to have had more of them that they hadn’t positioned yet when I ran off with the controls. After I thought I had thrown all of them off the ship, the Rockets probably just put all of the ones they had left in the engine room afterward.

The screen started to change and slowly formed a sort of countdown, with four minutes and thirty-two seconds left. I thought fast, but there was no way to stop the detonation. The engine room was too far away; there was no way I could get them off them ship in time. Only one logical solution remained…

“Come on, Firestorm,” I said, dashing back to the main room as fast I could. On the side of a wall to the right, I saw it. I ran over and pulled the switch down.

I don’t know what I expected, but the S.S. Anne’s emergency alarm put school fire drills to shame. An earsplitting, high-pitched screech blared out of speakers in every single room in the whole ship. I held my hands against my ears as I dashed up a flight of stairs to the captain’s quarters. Halfway there, a tall, gray-haired man in a white suit ran down toward me, yelling, “What is going on?!” as loud as he could to be heard over the noise.

“No time to explain, the ships gonna blow up in four minutes, we gotta get everyone off!” I yelled.

“You sure about that?” he asked, running his fingers through his beard in thought. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of prank?”

He studied the remote for a second before nodding and running back up the stairs. Several seconds later, the alarm quieted slightly as the captain used the speakers and yelled, “This is not a drill! Get to the lifeboats immediately to evacuate the ship!” Right after that, he ran back down the stairs and toward the central area, followed by the rest of the crew. Already, people had started to gather in the room, most of them still in their nightclothes and almost all of them yelling in panic trying to be heard over the constant blare. People were tripping over one another either trying to get outside or run back to find their friends. The captain pulled out a radio and yelled into it, though I couldn’t hear him and I wasn’t sure whoever he was talking to could either.

By this point, most of us had managed to group together and race out onto the deck, where the cold air pounded against us as we ambled on towards the back. Apparently, there were supposed to be lifeboats there, since that’s where the captain was leading us, but the racks for storage along the back of the ship were empty, most likely the Rockets’ doing. The captain sort of stood there shocked, but then regained himself, put away his radio, stood on a table so everyone could see him, and yelled instructions to us, which was easier out here since the alarm was louder inside.

“For whatever reason, the lifeboats are gone, so there’s no way off the ship! I’m afraid we’re going to have to jump! Those that can’t swim well, get help from someone who can, and if you have big enough Pokémon with you that can swim or fly, release them now!”

After he said this, several of the trainers pulled out Poké Balls to release Flying Pokémon and jumped onto the backs of the various aerial beasts to fly off the deck. Those that had Water Pokémon didn’t hesitate to jump overboard and release their Pokémon to help them swim in the choppy waters. Rain was pouring down on us the whole time and the waves in the ocean were rough. Most of the passengers hesitated before finally plunging into the sea. I shot a look at the remote, which now read thirty-nine seconds, before running back to the main area, where more of the passengers had just run out of their rooms and were lost on what to do.

“Quick!!!” I shouted. “We have to jump overboard, now, so use Flying or Water Pokémon to help you if you have ‘em, and if not, just get off the ship and worry about the storm later!”

They followed my instructions and ran out onto the deck, where most of the others had already jumped over the railing. There were only about two hundred people that had gotten out here so far, but there wasn’t time to get all of the rest of them out here. I ran back outside and was one of only eleven people who hadn’t jumped yet. The remote now had a bright red fifteen that was flashing as a warning.

“You better get in here, cause it’s gonna get wet,” I said to Firestorm, pulling out his Poké Ball and recalling him. I then wondered exactly how powerful the bombs were. There weren’t that many of them, but what if the explosion ended up big enough to hit people in the waters right next to the S.S. Anne? Finally, I shook myself from all of my thoughts and took off running toward the side of the deck without looking back. I jumped up onto the railing, kicked off, and let myself fall.

~End Chapter 4~
Until next chapter, please ask questions on anything confusing and I'm always open to constructive criticism. And by the way...
Claimer: Midnight Island is mine and no, you may not use it.

~Chibi~

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 24th March 2008 at 8:25 AM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

I thought I should tell readers that I fianally went back and edited the old chapters so I'd suggest going back and rereading the part where Jade first meets Stalker, cause it's way different now. It should clear up some confusion matters.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

*Sigh* If you were hoping that I'd finally posted Chapter 5, then you're wrong...*half of readers leave* My new laptop's been having serious problems, and my chapter 5 is on it, so rather than wait until I can get it fixed, I'm gonna rewrite it. I just wanted readers to know that I haven't abandoned this fic after putting so many years of editing and improvement into. Also, I went back and edited the old chapters yet again. Now I know what you're thinking: "Chibi Pika needs to get a life, all she ever does is rewrite her fic." but I added better description to a lot of places and also rewrote the end of Chapter 3 seeing as Jade was really stupid in the old version. I hope to see you guys when I finally get around to finishing chapter 5.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Eh, that was kinda spammy. But in a way, yes I am cause I've spent the last three months on the exact same paragraph in my fic. So I'm partly angry at my laptop for being stupid and partly at myself for getting a bad case of Writer's block.

~Chibi~

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages

Whee, double post-ness, but for a very good reason....I FINALLY HAVE CONQUERED THE EVIL CHAPTER 5 OF DOOM!!!!!!! Yes, I finally finished it, and seeing as I'm NEVER typing on my laptop again, Chapter 6 six shouldn't take nearly as long.

~Chapter 5: Team Rocket Training~

I landed with a splash in the numbing cold waters of the Orange Sea and immediately dove underwater as fast as I could. I swam downward until I was almost sure the bombs had already gone off before kicking back up and surfacing. I gasped for air as I looked up and saw that the explosion in the engine room had apparently been under the waterline. Immense waves of water were created from the force and swept over us, and flames had erupted from that room and were now consuming the higher parts of the ship. Although it wasn’t completely annihilated, as it would have been if I hadn’t gotten most of the explosives off the ship, it was clear that the S.S. Anne was starting to slip downward into the sea’s endless murky depths.

Several of the passengers were submerged by the towering waves and most of the others were having difficulty swimming. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the raindrops were practically pounding on our heads and the normal waves now seemed to be the same size as the ones created from the explosion. I had learned how to swim when I was very young, but I was horrible at treading water and I could already feel my legs tiring while I was smothered by the rush of seawater around me.

One of the trainers had released her Gyarados, which growled lightly and allowed her to sit atop its massive, draconic head. Many of those who couldn’t swim well were climbing up the marine snake-dragon’s thick, blue armor-like scales and onto its serpentine body, but even the enormous cobalt beast found it difficult to navigate the storm with so many passengers. After I considered the fact that the Orange Sea and the islands in the southern parts of it had tropical characteristics, I had a sudden fear that a hurricane was nearing. I wasn’t sure whether hurricanes formed in winter, but the clouds didn’t seem to be swirling with the circular hurricane motion. I struggled to remember what I had learned in school about hurricanes, but wasn’t sure whether the spiral cloud thing happened until later. Wait a minute—if there was a hurricane, then the weather officials would’ve known, and the S.S. Anne wouldn’t have been sailing here. Right?

“Crap, this is getting me nowhere,” I said, attempting to shake all of the thoughts on the storm out of my head and swimming toward the others.

I didn’t notice it until it was too late.

All of the other waves were tiny compared to this one. It rose over all of us, massive and seemingly endless. If I had only seen it earlier, I might have been able to dive under and avoid it, but it seemed to come from nowhere. I was caught in the middle of it and struggled to swim away, but my efforts were pointless—like a lone soldier fighting against an entire army. It thrust me under the surface and knocked the air out my lungs. I kicked upward, but was rapidly feeling a lack of oxygen. I hadn’t really had time to inhale deeply beforehand and had already been out of breath at the time. I swam as hard as I could, but the surface seemed to be miles away, and a constant feeling that I wasn’t going to make it lingered at the back of my mind, hindering my progress.

Finally I surfaced with a splash and gasped for breath, just thankful to be above the water that it took me a second for the full effect of my surroundings to hit me.

It was gone. The storm, the waves, the rain…everything was gone. The others looked up at the sky, amazed at the phenomenon. I swam over, and was about to ask someone what on earth had happened when something caught my eye. I turned to the left to see a rescue boat speeding toward us as though nothing had ever happened.

At first, I was surprised that a rescue boat had arrived so fast, but not after I learned that we were right off the coast of Fuchsia, a beach city on a southern peninsula of Kanto. We were all standing, most of us shivering as well, aboard the white and red rescue ship, which was about five times as large as most recreational boats, but still nothing compared to the S.S. Anne.

A computerized touch pad was passed to me with the names of everyone who boarded. We were evidently supposed to sign our name so the officials could know many had escaped the ship in time and survived, so I took the stylus, scribbled my messy, printed signature next to my name, and passed it on. Before I did though, a particular name caught my eye and I stared long and hard at it to make sure it was really there: Rudy Flaranel. It had a signature next to it.

Rudy was there the whole freaking time and didn’t even bother to let me know that he was?! I mean, there hadn’t really been that many of us who had made it off the ship, how could I possibly not have seen him?! I groaned and walked though the group of huddled people, searching each face until I found him sitting down inside of the boat rather than out on the deck. I walked inside and sat down next to him.

“Hey Jade,” he said brightly before laughing slightly at the look on my face and saying, “Guess I should explain some stuff, huh?”

“Ya think?” I asked, laughing a little myself, the air of anxiety gone just from being with a good friend. “I’d sort of like to figure out this weird coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence. You know that Stalker dude who gave out the tickets? He prob’ly told you how he’s way involved with Team Rocket. He actually saw our whole battle against Tyson.”

“What?” I suddenly asked. “You mean he was there the whole time and didn’t help us?”

“I dunno, I think he said he had something to do with your friend showing up. Anyway, he talked to me and gave me the card thing after I got back to Viridian and mentioned that he’d given you one, too. I sort of got in trouble for being gone all day, but I did tell your mom that’d you’d gone on a journey with Swift and that you already had a Charmander and a Pikachu. Anyway, around a week later—”

“Wait, wait, wait…how’d my parents react?” I asked, wincing a little.

“Oh…yeah, um…” Rudy put his hand behind his head and looked a little sheepish. “Let’s just say that before I told ‘em, your dad was like, ready to call the cops and thought that you’d been kidnapped or something. I figured it’d be smart not to tell ‘em the whole Team Rocket story.”

“Oh, yeah…um, my dad let me start on a Pokémon Journey about a week after that, so I made sure to grab the bus from city to city until I made it to Vermilion, and I got there about four days before we left,” Rudy explained.

“But I was at the Pokémon Center the whole time, how could I not have seen you?!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, I never stayed at the Pokémon Center, I spent most of my time looking for Pokémon along the outside of the city,” he replied.

“Did you catch anything new?” I asked with curiosity.

“Yeah, I spent a long time looking and I managed to find a Pikachu in the Viridian Forest, and well, he obviously doesn’t have super powers or anything, but he’s still pretty formidable,” Rudy said, grinning.

“So anyway, how come I never saw you on the S.S. Anne?” I asked.

“I was looking for you during the Trainer’s Party but couldn’t really find you,” he said. I decided not to mention that I had spent most of the evening during the party in my room unless you counted my talk with Chibi. At the thought of Chibi, I ached inside. Team Rocket wouldn’t kill him, but what kind of tormenting things would they do to him to further their other ways of experimentation? While I was lost in my thoughts, Rudy explained something about seeing me while in the sea and trying to get my attention, but me not seeing him. That suddenly reminded me and I instantly asked, “What happened to stop the storm?”

Rudy stopped and gaped at me. “You mean you didn’t see it?”

“No,” I replied a little awkwardly. He had made it sound as though no one in his or her right mind would have missed it.

“It was a little creepy, but way awesome,” he said. “That last big wave was made by this huge…thing swooping down at the ocean. The clouds were blocking the moon and stars, so I couldn’t really see it, but right before it appeared, the storm stopped and the waves calmed down. Right as it dove into the water, the moon showed through the clouds, but even then, all I could really see was the shadow of a dragon thing in the water.

“Sweet,” I said, seriously wishing I had seen it. That said, the conversation somewhat seemed to be over. I stared out the window for a long while before going over to one of the other bench chairs and lying down. I rarely fell asleep very fast; it sometimes took me over an hour to get to sleep, but this time was an exception.

I woke up at about ten to the sound of everyone moving around. I had thought that the boat would just take us to Fuchsia, but apparently, those in charge of the rescue ship had thought it better to take us to our original destination.

I slowly stood to my feet and walked out onto the deck. The boat was docked at a fairly small harbor at the edge of a city. I looked along the side of the boat and saw a ramp leading down toward the dock.

“What’s going on?” Rudy asked, walking over while rubbing his eyes.

“I think we’re here…Midnight Island,” I replied looking out at the city. It was fairly small actually, though it probably seemed that way since I grew up in the big city. Along the outskirts of town, a forest started and looked like it covered most of the island. Out in the distance, on the far north side of the island, I could see a large building, possibly the stadium Stalker had rented, though I wondered why it was out in the woods.

“Hey, everyone!” one of the trainers yelled after walking out of the Pokémon Center. “The lead nurse in there just told me that we’re supposed to go to that stadium way out there,” she said, pointing first to the stadium, and then to a street that led to it. Many of the trainers hesitated and looked at one another, as through regretting the decision to come here. At first I figured that last night had made them realize the danger they would have to face, as even I had trouble blocking out the memory of what had happened. But then I realized it.

I had gotten lucky. I hadn’t even known that Rudy was on the ship, and both of us had gotten off alive anyway. But many of the trainers had to have lost friends when the S.S. Anne sank. After some time, however, a few kids walked down the ramp onto the dock, and the others followed soon afterward.

Looking back at the ship, I asked Rudy, “Do you think we’re allowed to just leave?”

“I dunno, but I don’t really think it matters,” he replied, shrugging.

I then suddenly realized that Firestorm and Swift had been in their Poké Balls all night ever since I had to jump overboard. I pulled the red and white spheres out of my pocket and opened them, releasing the two Pokémon.

“Huh, what’re you releasing your Pokémon for?” Rudy asked.

“Well, they’ve been stuck in their Poké Balls for a long time,” I replied simply as Firestorm and Swift appeared and looked up at me expectantly.

“*What happened?*” Swift asked immediately.

“*We obviously made it off the ship in time if we’re here,*” Firestorm said. “*What I’d like to know is what happened with Chibi before we woke up.*”

“*I meant after the battle. I didn’t see what happened,*” Swift said.

“I’d also kinda like to know what was up with the ship exploding and all,” Rudy said, since he had probably managed to catch the general idea of what they were saying.

I sighed before going into the events of the previous night. From when Chibi and I heard the Rockets in the storage area to when the Manectric initiated the automatic detonation, I explained everything as we walked on toward the stadium. Finally the trees grew sparse and we emerged into a large clearing where the stadium lay surrounded by gray pavement. It was shaped like a wide cylinder and had tons of windows lining the side of it, most likely where the rooms were. The main entrance at the front opened as we approached, so the hundred or so trainers made their way slowly inside. We were in a large waiting room type place with a desk at the far end and two hallways branching off to the left and right. Large computer panels lined the walls, most likely used for trainer registry during competitions.

Having heard us enter, Stalker soon walked in from the left hallway. He surveyed the group before saying, “I know there were more people I gave tickets to. Are the others late or—”

“The S.S. Anne blew up…some of us didn’t make it off in time…” one of the kids in front said, looking down slightly.

“Blew up?” Stalker said, looking slightly taken aback. “I’ll have to get the details on that later. Anyway, everyone line up so I can get you all registered.”

At once, the huge mass of trainers all started to shove for a spot close to the front. Rudy and I were around twentieth until a bunch of people cut several others in front of us. One by one Stalker led the kids to his office to get them registered for the rebellion. Finally, after nearly an hour, Rudy was at the front of the line, followed by me. Around seven minutes after his turn, Rudy came back carrying two small cards and some black clothes.

“See you when you’re done,” Rudy said, walking down the other hallway.

“Next,” Stalker said from the office.

“I think you guys had better stay here,” I said to Swift and Firestorm. They nodded and I walked down the hallway and into the room. It was small and didn’t really look like an office. There was a small table with a laptop and various other computer-related devices, a small bookshelf with several books that, at a glance, seemed to mostly involve Pokémon training and legends. The few pictures on the walls seemed to be of mythical Pokémon.

“I’ve asked most everyone this and only the Rudy kid had any info, but what happened with the S.S. Anne?” Stalker asked. I briefly explained to him the string of events involving Team Rocket. Stalker nodded and said, “I figured that Team Rocket would somehow figure out about our team, and that’s why I took a couple of precautions.”

“Like what?” I asked, sitting down in a small black chair.

“Well, for one, I didn’t say anything about where our base was or who I was on those cards. Otherwise, Team Rocket could have easily destroyed this stadium, though their whole midnight operation to kill all the team members would’ve been way worse if it had gone through. And second, they can’t know I’m involved in all this, because I’m also on their Johto Force. Trust me, you do not want to be caught as a Rocket traitor. Also, I had a friend of mine hack into the database for the S.S. Anne so that it was listed as sailing to Cinnabar,” he explained.

So that explained what the Rockets said about the base being on Cinnabar Island.

“So as far as the Rockets know,” Stalker continued, “the rebellion against them was stopped in its tracks and the ship was destroyed along with everyone on it. Of course, they’ll probably figure out the truth once their missions start ending up failures.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask this…why didn’t you just have us all take some ferry here from Lavender Town instead of going through all this?” I asked.

“Midnight Island doesn’t have that many people going to and from it, and on top of that, Lavender is a tiny town with hardly any people. Two hundred or so Pokémon Trainers going there at one time would be pretty suspicious,” he explained. “Now enough of that, I need to get you signed up so we can get everyone registered today. Your name’s Jade, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay, well, you’ll probably need a fake name cause sometimes you’ll fight Team Rocket just as yourself and other times you’ll infiltrate their bases posing as one of them.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, going over several names in my head. After a few seconds, I finally settled on one that I had used in games as a kid. “Um, Aly I guess.”

“Right,” he said, typing that before saying, “you can use the same last name unless you want to use a fake one.”

“Nah, that’s okay, my last name’s Arenesa,” I said.

Stalker typed for a while and clicked on several things before asking for my birthday. I answered, “November 12, 2009,” and that seemed to be all the information he needed.

“Right, that’s everything. Now just the uniform,” Stalker said, leading me to another room that was sort of like a huge closet filled with tons of pants, shirts, and optional parts of the Team Rocket uniform like hats. “Of course, you won’t wear this while pretending to be a part of Team Rocket missions. As you’ve probably noticed, they’re almost never in uniform while on undercover missions, but you’ll need to be in uniform while at their headquarters. Pick out what you want,” he said, leaving and closing the door.

I tried on various pants and shirts, all black and bearing the red R of Team Rocket, before finding an outfit that fit well and looked cool. I had managed to find a gray vest, a regular black T-shirt, and also black cargo pants, but my best find was the skullcap. It, like everything else except the vest, was black with an R, but it looked awesome and best of all, I really did not look like myself while wearing it. Though it probably wouldn’t change anything if I were to run into Tyson or one of the other Rockets that knew me, it would help so that everyone else didn’t realize that Jade and Aly were the same person. I put on the clothes and walked out holding my backpack and the outfit I had been wearing before, which was wrinkled and stiff from the seawater. I left the room and walked back into the office, where Stalker was leaning back in his desk chair.

He nodded and said, “I doubt you’ll be discovered as long as you always wear that when acting like a real member of Team Rocket. Now for the picture.” He adjusted a small camera on top of his computer that I hadn’t noticed before. He clicked once and I tried not to blink. He then clicked several times, and one of the machines turned on and made a loud noise as it did…whatever it was meant for. A few seconds later, a small card popped out of a slot on the bottom of it; Stalker handed it to me.

“Cool, a fake Team Rocket ID,” I said, looking at it. It had the Rocket logo on top, my picture on the side, and various pieces of information on the right including my position as a beginning member of Team Rocket, my join date, age, gender, and being registered for the Kanto Force.

“Nope, it’s real,” he said.

“You mean I’m really in with Team Rocket?” I asked incredulously.

“Well you’d have to be to be able to get into their bases undetected. A fake card could be easily found out. But I’m allowed to register new members any time I want, so if I submit you guys’ registrations over time, no one on Team Rocket will get suspicious,” he explained.

“But…” I said, confused, “if all of us joining the rebellion are really registered with Team Rocket, then we are real members.”

“Alright, officially, yes, but technically, no, cause your sole purpose for joining is to screw with Team Rocket, so Rocket traitor is more appropriate a title. Anyway…you don’t have a trainer’s license yet, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I can’t register your license with a room, so you’ll need this,” he said, handing me another card, slightly smaller than the ID. “It’s card key for a room here. The main battlefield entrance is down the hall and to the right. Only one last thing to handle…I’ll need your ID card.”

After I handed it to him, he opened a drawer in his desk and went through its contents. He pulled a small blue device that looked like some sort of cell phones and plugged my ID card into the bottom. After several seconds, there was a beep and he removed the card.

“Rocket Communicator,” he said, handing it to me along with my card. “All Rockets are issued one, and they’re going to be absolutely invaluable to The Rebellion. They work a lot like cell phones except that they can only call other Communicators.” I suddenly remembered Tyson’s mention of that when he called for reinforcements on one.

“Oh yeah, and since I’m renting the whole stadium and letting you guys stay in for free, you don’t really get paid as much as I had originally intended,” he added.

“Paid?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be paid to fight Team Rocket.

“Well, yeah. And also depending on how well you fool the Rocket Executive that’s head of you into thinking that you’re a loyal, contributing member, you’ll get paid by Team Rocket, too.”

“Cool,” I said, before walking out of the office. Seeing that I was finished, the next person in line walked down to the room and I went back to the line to get Firestorm and Swift.

“*Whoa,*” Firestorm said, seeing me in the Team Rocket uniform. Swift stared with no recognizable expression.

“Yeah, to be on the rebellion I gotta be registered on Team Rocket,” I said. “Come on, let’s go find our room,” I said, walking down the right hallway past the battlefield and up two flights of stairs.

“249…249, oh, here it is,” I muttered, walking towards the door and touching the card key to the scanner. A small light turned green as the door opened and I walked in.

The room was fairly small, but nice. It was large, rectangular, and had a normal-sized bed by the far wall with a nightstand, a dresser with a TV, and another table with chairs. The window looked out on the forest—I could see nothing but tons of trees with a small clearing to the side and a glimpse of the city and the sea far off in the distance to the south. I threw my backpack in the corner and flopped onto the bed. Swift flew over and perched on a wooden chair and Firestorm sat on the bed with his tail hanging off the side.

“So…we’ve made it here, we’ve got our room, now whaddya say we get something to eat in town and then check out the battlefield?” I asked.

“*You got any money left?*” Firestorm asked.

“Not much,” I admitted. “Hopefully I can make it last until I get paid, or maybe I could ask Stalker to borrow some…? Oh well, let’s get going.”

I changed back into my original clothes in the bathroom. When I was finished, Swift flapped lightly and landed on my shoulder as Firestorm and I walked toward the door. We strolled out the door, along the stairs and past the actual battlefield part of the stadium, where several trainers were already practice battling. For the most part, we walked on in silence, along the path we had originally followed to get to the stadium. I had always liked nature, and I glanced at the dense forests that covered the bulk of the island, the call of the birds in my ears. Finally, we neared the edge of town, and I wandered in search of a Pokémon mart until I found one near the Pokémon Center alongside the dock.

It was not unusual for some trainers to keep small Pokémon outside of their Poké Balls even inside stores, yet I still felt slightly weird, walking around with a Pidgey on my shoulder and a Charmeleon at my side. I perused the first aisle with intrigue, for I had never been in a PokéMart before. There were several rows of items ranging from capture devices to travel conveniences. A display of Poké Ball belts hung from the wall to the right, along with necklaces and other carriers. I had once owned a single-ball necklace, but these ones held six.

“*Do you even need a Poké Ball belt?*” Firestorm asked incredulously, noticing how much I was staring.

“Er, not really,” I replied sheepishly. “I can’t even use the holders on my pants since I’m not allowed to have Poké Balls.”

“*But…*”—he glanced around confusedly—“*should Swift and I not be out while other humans are around?*”

“There’s nothing illegal about you guys just being with me,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure of that.

We came to the second aisle, where all the Pokémon food was. I browsed the shelves and found the woodland bird and predatory reptile sections. I grabbed one bag of food for each, staggered slightly with the weight, and proceeded to the register. However, I couldn’t help but gaze longingly at several of the items in the other aisles. Powerful Technical Machines, stronger variations of the Poké ball, power increasing vitamins for Pokémon, hold items that helped in battle…

“*You’re doing it again,*” Firestorm said with a smirk.

All of the battling supplies required a license upon purchase, so I couldn’t have bought anything anyway.

I bought the Pokémon food and walked quickly to the nearest convenience store, buying some bread, various chips, and some cookies when I got there. I stumbled back outside, nearly overloaded with purchases, and handed the less heavy food to Firestorm, carrying the Pokémon food myself.

“D’you mind holding that stuff?” I asked him.

“*It’s nothing,*” he replied quickly.

“You know…” I said suddenly, just remembering something I had been wondering for a while. “When we first met, how could you understand me right away? I mean, Swift and me have been friends for a while so he understands humans, and Chibi was raised by Team Rocket, but you were in the forest, so—”

“*The explanation behind that is lots simpler that you think,*” he said, cutting me off. But then he sort of looked unwilling to tell me. “*You see, I was actually raised by human as well, as a Starter Pokémon. I was given to some kid—his name was Zack—as his first Pokémon. Things went okay for a while; he started a journey and I just sort of did what he said, seeing as I didn’t know any better. Well…one day we were attacked by some older gang kids. I fought their Pokémon and lost, and they messed with me for a while, practicing their Pokémon’s attacks and such on me.” Here he paused, heavily considering his words. “Eventually, I escaped from them and I ran out into the woods right away.*”

“Wow,” I said slowly. I hadn’t realized there had been that much more to his past than I had figured. “But if I was able to capture you, then your old Poké Ball must have been destroyed somehow.”

Firestorm nodded. “*I soon found out that there were a lot of Charmander in that area, so I hooked up with a small group of them west of the city. I spent a long time there, until finally, well…there was the fire,*” he concluded.

I wasn’t really entirely sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything, which felt very awkward. Firestorm proceeded to glance along at the scenery. Another thought struck me, however.

“Firestorm?” I said again suddenly, thinking out loud more than really starting a conversation. “I always learned that when Pokémon evolve, it’s like they’re jumping five or so years on the physical maturity scale, right?”

“*That’s more or less what it’s like,*” Firestorm confirmed.

“Well, in suddenly growing that much, most Pokémon often grow mentally as well and sometimes even have a whole new outlook on life and their trainer…how come you didn’t?” I asked.

Firestorm grinned and said, “*I was wondering when you’d ask that.*” He paused for a moment and said, “*Well…have you ever wondered how old I am?*”

“It’s crossed my mind more than once,” I said truthfully.

“*Well…*” he continued, “*I’m seven.*”

“But…Pokémon age faster in their early years than humans, so in Pokémon years that would make you…twelve?” I asked.

“*I guess,*” he said. “*I dunno how humans age, but…*”

“Well…the amount of battle strength a Pokémon has drastically lowers the evolution age, and you’ve already been trained which means you should have evolved like…whoa, two years ago!” I exclaimed.

“*Exactly,*” Firestorm said grinning.

“Well…that pretty much explains it all…” I said. I could almost literally hear the words that my old Pokémon Evolution teacher had said during class: “In the event that a Pokémon evolves after the typical maturity age, less psychological change comes about, due to it having longer time to learn and grow mentally before the evolution.”

“What about you, Swift? You’ve sure been quiet,” I commented.

“*Oh,*” he said, as though being shaken from a trance. “*I was just sort of thinking…*”

“You know, you’re probably getting close to evolving, would you want to?” I asked.

He considered this for a while. “*I suppose. Even being a Pidgeotto would be nice, but to someday soar as a Pidgeot…*” His voice trailed off.

For about an hour more, we walked back until finally reaching Midnight Stadium again. I left Firestorm and Swift by the battlefield as I ran back to the room to drop off the food. We then entered the field.

Last edited by Chibi Pika; 24th March 2008 at 11:48 PM.

Ever wondered what would happen if humans had the power to overthrow the Legendaries? To either use them for their own ends, or eliminate them altogether? One thing is for certain...the balance between human and Legendary is unstable.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8/30/12: CHAPTER 7: “Into the Fire” POSTED!!!
Chapter 8 progress: 9/12 pages